Racism has no place in medicine

Despite the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision finding that race-based admissions standards violated the Civil Rights Act, higher education institutions across the country have continued racist practices with creative workarounds to maintain the existing racial quotas. The Department of Justice completed an investigation of the University of California, Los Angeles’s medical school this week, finding that it is still discriminating based on race. The department’s report is a stark reminder of how deeply racist ideology has infected higher education, and medical schools in particular, and why vigilance is needed in dismantling such odious practices.

As late as 2014, white men made up about 30% of medical students, a proportion largely in line with their share of the general population. Starting in the early 2010s, however, the body in charge of accrediting medical schools, the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, adopted new regulations requiring schools “to achieve mission-appropriate diversity outcomes among its students”