Roughly three dozen GOP lawmakers announced this week they are fighting to topple the DEI hierarchy within U.S. medical schools.
Led By North Carolina Rep. Greg Murphy, a medical doctor, the group on Tuesday introduced the “Embracing Anti-discrimination, Unbiased Curricula, and Advancing Truth in Education” (EDUCATE) Act, which bans race-based mandates at both medical schools and accrediting institutions.
According to a press release from Murphy’s office, the EDUCATE Act would gut federal funding, including for student loans, to medical schools that force either students or faculty “to adopt specific beliefs, discriminate based on race or ethnicity, or have diversity, equity, and inclusion offices or any functional equivalent.”
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The measure would also require accreditation agencies to verify that their own standards do not advocate for DEI while still allowing instruction about health issues linked to race or gathering data for research.
“American medical schools are the best in the world and no place for discrimination,” Murphy said in a statement.
“The EDUCATE Act compels medical schools and accrediting agencies to uphold colorblind admissions processes and prohibits the coercion of students who hold certain political opinions.”
“Diversity strengthens medicine,” he added, “but not if it’s achieved through exclusionary practices. Medicine is about serving others and doing the best job possible in every circumstance. We cannot afford to sacrifice the excellence and quality of medical education at the hands of prejudice and divisive ideology.”
According to the text of the bill, one thing that medical schools could do to invoke the ban include declaring that “any sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, or national origin makes an individual a member of oppressed or oppressor categories.”
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Another no-no is maintaining that “America is systemically, structurally, or institutionally racist, or that racism is weaved into the ‘ordinary business of society’, or that America is an oppressive nation.”
The Daily Mail, which also reported on Murphy’s bill, noted that federal research grants and contracts pumped $26 billion into U.S. medical schools as of 2022. That’s out of a total of $180 billion.
Florida GOP Reps. Scott Franklin of Lakeland and Gus Bilirakis of Clearwater are co-sponsors of Murphy’s proposed law.
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