Medical schools nationwide continue to promote left-wing ideology on race, gender, and obesity at the expense of students and patients, according to a new watchdog investigation.
Dozens of medical schools across the country compel students to embrace progressive dogma on race and gender, while a smaller yet still significant group push students to downplay the harmful effects of obesity, according to a report by the right-leaning non-profit Free Speech First obtained by National Review.
“Although multiple states have taken steps to remove DEI from education, this report highlights that the problem runs deep and requires a concerted effort to truly eradicate it from higher education,” said Nicole Neily, acting executive director of Speech First.
“Discrimination on the basis of race and sex is always wrong – and to find it used so extensively in the medical field is particularly appalling. It’s clear that steps need to be taken by policymakers at both the state and federal level to end these noxious practices, because patients and physicians alike deserve better.”
Of the medical schools Speech First investigated, 99 percent of them mandated commitments to racial justice ideology and 89 percent did so for gender ideology. Almost a third, 30 percent, required the promotion of “weight inclusivity.”
“Weight inclusivity” is a lesser known left-wing belief that obese people are victims of oppression whose condition should not be viewed as a serious medical issue. Obesity is a significant medical issue that greatly increases the risk of having other diseases such as heart disease, diabetes, high cholesterol, liver disease, and certain cancers, among other health issues, according to the Mayo Clinic.
In recent decades, obesity has become a nationwide epidemic, with 40.3 percent of Americans qualifying as obese as of 2023, according to data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.
Obesity related cardiovascular deaths tripled from 1999 to 2020, increasing from 2.2 per 100,000 to 6.6 per 100,000, according to American Heart Association research. A separate study published last year found that obesity-related mortality went up from 1.8 per 100,000 in 2010 to 3.1 per 100,000 in 2020.
Each year, obesity is responsible for an estimated 2.5 million deaths worldwide, per the World Health Organization. A June 2022 study of U.S. deaths attributed nearly 500,000 deaths to it per year, an increase from related studies taken in 1999 showing it caused roughly 300,000 U.S. deaths annually.
Nonetheless, students at some medical schools are encouraged to demonstrate “weight inclusivity,” which requires them to speak about obesity in neutral terms, rather than acknowledging its negative consequences.
Administrators at the University of Texas, Austin attempted to police language like “overweight” and “obese” in one of its second year programs. Likewise, UCLA incorporates the concept of “fatphobia” into its curricula and the University of Vermont’s attempt to “reimagine” nutrition to dismiss the importance of weight as a health indicator.
The Speech First report is based on public records and open source information from 54 medical schools, including top public medical schools in most states. Several cases of censorship and retaliation against medical school professors for speaking out against the outgrowth of left-wing ideology inspired Speech First’s investigation.
Medical schools impose DEI, gender ideology, and “weight inclusivity” through student and faculty applications. They are incorporating DEI into hippocratic oaths and making DEI beliefs a key part of orientations, trainings, coursework, and clerkships. The medical schools are coercing students into affirming patients claimed gender identities and enforcing the guidelines with harassment policies. Medical Schools are also putting gender ideology into courses, clerkships, and school policies like they are with DEI.
Many schools, such as the University of Missouri, employ diversity statements to enforce ideological conformity, asking job applicants how they will contribute to diversity at the school and in the medical profession as a condition of their being hired.
The DEI mandates exist at schools in blue and red states alike. Documents obtained from Louisiana State University, a school in a deep red, southern state, show that its medical school asked diversity questions in faculty interviews, including a question about how the candidate improved diversity at a prior organization.
Some schools have continued offering trainings on “implicit bias” and “microaggressions,” two left-wing concepts related to DEI. Meanwhile, schools such as the University of Cincinnati and University of Minnesota-Twin Cities ask students to take “anti-racist” and DEI-oriented hippocratic oaths.
At some institutions, such as the Oregon Health and Science University, students are disciplined for “misgendering” colleagues or speaking in ways that conflict with a person’s gender identity.
“A DEI plague has plunged our medical schools into critical condition. They’re compelling students into being social justice zealots who prioritize care by race, push kids into gender identities defying biology, and deny obesity’s health risks, all for their woke DEI dogma,” said Jared Gould, research fellow for Speech First.
“If this continues, I’m horrified we’ll get doctors who will shove kids into gender chaos, favor race over health, and lie to obese patients, endangering us all for a deranged fringe.”