The University of North Carolina imposes Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) throughout its medical system. Last year, vice dean for DEI at the medical school, E. Nathan Thomas, declared, “We’re infusing DEI into the fabric of the School of Medicine and the institution.” In 2021, UNC Health hired its first Chief Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer at $126,000/year. Neither employee holds a medical doctorate; both serve the UNC School of Medicine Health Executives Committee.
Executive Dean of the School of Medicine, Cristy Page, co-authored a paper about systemic racism in the healthcare workforce, which read like a wordsearch puzzle of woke jargon. The paper concluded that merit would no longer be required for leadership positions, and all UNC employees would need unconscious bias training.
UNC Health compelled medical department heads to attend CRT-based racial equity training. According to a detailed report by the organization Do No Harm, the UNC medical school paid nearly $100,000 for students to attend anti-racist workshops where they learned, “UNC was built on and profited from the seizure of indigenous land.”
Individual departments like Pediatrics or Radiology developed their own DEI action plans, with timelines to hold leaders accountable to DEI ideology. The Department of Surgery plan includes, “Implementation of Social Justice Curriculum during Surgery Clerkship,” and “Holistic review of application for surgery residencies.” I envision surgery resident candidates writing application essays entitled, “Abolition and Appendicitis: How Abdominal Pain Diagnosis Affects Systemic Change,” or, “I’m Marginalized; Hand Me the Scalpel.”
Fostering DEI disciples in graduate programs is a dangerous game. This week a UNC law student was arrested and charged with domestic terrorism for participating in the Antifa attack on an Atlanta police training facility. According to the Carolina Journal, the student (who is male but identifies as she/they) described himself as, “a white trans femme organizer in Charlotte who is fiercely committed to supporting Black trans femmes, prison abolition, and destabilizing all forms of oppression.” The suspect’s father, Michael Marsicano, former CEO of a large progressive philanthropic organization, financially backed a Racial Equity Initiative in Charlotte, NC, and is a member of the Governing Board of Duke University Health System. Is UNC (or Duke) preparing the next batch of medical students for similar violent activities in the name of anti-racism and equity?
UNC medicine and its ideologically driven administration coerced physicians into writing DEI statements on résumés. The Department of Pediatrics sponsors workshops for experienced medical professors on DEI virtue signaling for promotion requirements. These lectures advocate DEI statements be “a one-half to full-page summary documenting faculty members efforts’ to support and further the [School of Medicine] DEI mission.”
Obviously, the health-care system at UNC has been very proud of forcing its DEI ideology into medicine -- until recently. Coinciding with the decision by the UNC Board of Governors (BOG) to end compelled DEI statements on résumés, the Department of Medicine and Department of Pediatrics password protected their DEI resources. Publicly funded medical departments are excluding the public from viewing “inclusive” materials without explanation.
Why would UNC physicians hide recently available DEI doctrine behind a pass code? Could it be that those who use DEI over merit to advance in the medical hierarchy are afraid people are recognizing their manipulative tactics? Are woke administrations scared that the public understands how DEI “kills the intellect?” Was the UNC BOG decision a signal for DEI deluded doctors to hide their insidious ideology?
The answer is all of the above. Exposing the ideologically driven far-left activism behind DEI and pushing back works. The ideologues are scared, shielding their ideas of "inclusivity" from the very public that funds them. They know what they are doing is wrong. Last year, the Department of Pediatrics removed two DEI resources (the gender fluid Genderbread Man and supporting documents for the 1619 Project) following open criticism. After the BOG decision, UNC medical departments -- reluctant to give up DEI entirely -- now hide the materials from view, knowing their inclusive documents are not so inclusive or diverse after all.
The UNC Department of Pediatrics enjoys song and dance routines. Following up their choreographed routine to celebrate “culturally sensitive care,” the UNC pediatricians have released a third dance video -- this time featuring the Pediatric DEI Committee Vice Chair singing in the shower.
Unfortunately, unlike their DEI resources, this song and dance routine isn’t hidden from the viewing public.
Image: UNC School of Medicine