The school also acknowledges advocating for legal changes in line with its DEI efforts.
In the wake of reports that the University of Minnesota Medical School had incoming students pledge to promote anti-racism and uproot white supremacy, the medical school has now acknowledged that it rewards faculty for promoting its left-wing diversity, equity, and inclusion agenda, and that it actively advocates for legal changes around that agenda.
According to a survey that University of Minnesota Medical School leaders completed earlier this year, the school’s tenure and promotion policies “specifically reward faculty scholarship and service on diversity, inclusion, and equity topics.” The school also reported that it advocates “policies and/or legislation at a local, state, or federal level” related to its DEI mission, and that its institutional leaders are “active within local, regional, and national forums” to promote DEI, according to the survey, obtained by National Review.
The survey, which University of Minnesota Medical School leaders completed for the Association of American Medical Colleges, confirms that the Upper Midwest school has gone further than most other medical schools in pushing left-wing ideology on its staff, students, and community.
“These DEI initiatives are really degrading to medical education, and they’re intended to indoctrinate you, prospective doctor, into believing that you and the healthcare industry are hopelessly and systemically racist,” said Laura Morgan, a registered nurse and the program manager for Do No Harm, a nonprofit founded to push back against the ascendent racial-equity agenda in medicine. “It’s damaging to a profession that depends on a relationship of trust between physician and patient.”
Do No Harm received the University of Minnesota Medical School’s survey through a Freedom of Information Act Request. Morgan said the survey shows that the medical school’s leaders are “getting into public debates on topics that don’t have anything to do with training physicians on how to be a good doctor, and it’s wasting resources that need to be spent on actual medical education, and not the promotion of divisive ideologies.”
In an email to National Review, University of Minnesota Medical School spokeswoman Kat Dodge said the school had not been made aware of Do No Harm’s concerns, and directed questions about the survey to the Association of American Medical Colleges. In response to a question regarding how the school treats job applicants and prospective students who have ideological disagreements over DEI, Dodge said, “The Medical School aligns with the University in being a fair and equal employer for potential job seekers. For prospective students, the University’s Medical School application process is rigorous, examining an applicant’s academic performance, recommendation letters and an on-site interview to evaluate the applicant.”
The University of Minnesota Medical School was one of 101 Association of American Medical College member schools that completed the survey. The survey is part of the association’s effort to “accelerate meaningful change that supports diversity, equity, and inclusion” in the academic medicine community, according to its November report, “The Power of Collective Action: Assessing and Advancing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Efforts at AAMC Medical Schools.”
The survey consisted of 89 questions in six content areas that measured schools’ commitment to and efforts around DEI. The schools answered “Yes,” “No,” or “Not Applicable,” to each of the 89 questions, also referred to as the association’s Diversity, Inclusion, Culture, and Equity (DICE) Inventory.
The University of Minnesota Medical School answered “Yes” to 94.4 percent of the questions, giving it one of the nation’s highest DICE Inventory scores. The association’s report did not list DICE scores for the schools, but it did report that only 28 of the 101 schools scored over 90 percent. Do No Harm is requesting surveys from all of the public schools that participated.
Among the things the University of Minnesota Medical School leaders acknowledged in the survey: The school collects demographic data on its senior leaders, faculty, staff, and students; has undertaken efforts to integrate DEI into the curriculum as a “key learning outcome”; has information systems “sufficiently flexible to accommodate a student’s self-identified gender identity”; tracks recruitment, hiring outcomes, and promotions by demographic group; sponsors DEI affinity groups for faculty and staff; has established spaces for “members of the campus community to gather with members of their own identity group”; and has a “staff service award” to recognize DEI contributions.
In a report last month by The National Desk, Dr. David Acosta, the chief diversity and inclusion officer for the Association of American Medical Colleges, said the association’s schools have “an obligation to address the factors that drive racism and bias in health care and prepare physicians who are culturally responsive.”
“There is strong evidence that historically marginalized people and people who live in poverty disproportionately experience poor health and inadequate access to quality care,” Acosta said. “These inequities are often rooted in systemic discrimination, including racism, within the nation’s health systems that contributes to lower quality care.”
The University of Minnesota Medical School made headlines earlier this year when the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) reported that in August it held a woke “white coat ceremony” — a ceremony marking the beginning of a medical student’s clinical-health studies. During the ceremony, students committed to “uprooting the legacy and perpetuation of structural violence deeply embedded within the health care system.” They recognized “inequalities built by past and present traumas rooted in white supremacy, colonialism, the gender binary, ableism, and all forms of oppression.” They committed to “promoting a culture of anti-racism.” And they pledged to “honor all indigenous ways of healing that have been historically marginalized by Western medicine.”
FIRE reported that the pledge was written by a “small subset of students.” A lawyer for the medical school responded to the report, writing in a letter that the pledge was not mandatory and that “the University does not compel any medical student to engage in speech.”
Reports also show that the University of Minnesota Medical School asks applicants to the school to address their beliefs about DEI, identity, and racial justice. For example, prospective students are asked to discuss a time when they “observed, personally experienced, or acted with implicit or explicit bias,” to explain how their identity impacted the development of their values, and to share their “reflections on, experiences with, and greatest lessons learned about systemic racism.”
Over the summer, Do No Harm released a report that found that some of the nation’s best medical schools are weeding out applicants who are insufficiently devoted to DEI efforts. “A review of the admissions process at 50 of the top-ranked medical schools found that 36 asked applicants their views on, or experience in, DEI efforts,” the report found. “Many were overt in asking applicants if they agreed with certain statements about racial politics and the causes of disparate health outcomes.”
According to the report, medical schools are asking these questions in order to “turn ideological support for health equity and social justice initiatives into a credential that increases an applicant’s chance of acceptance,” “screen out dissenters,” and “signal to all applicants that they are expected to support this new cause.”