The leftist obsession with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) has swept over nearly all of American education, as our supposed leaders cannot find the backbone to say “no” to the zealots who demand that everything else be subordinated to their visions. If you’ve been thinking that at least the medical profession would hold the line, you’re badly mistaken.

That’s the news in today’s Martin Center article by Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, who recently gave an address for the Center.

Fidelity to DEI has now become essential in the medical profession, something Dr. Goldfarb found out the hard way. He writes,

Over the previous four years, I had publicly questioned the rise of “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” or DEI, in health care, expressing particular concern about its ubiquity in medical schools. That included the institution where I taught and served as an administrator for decades, the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine. I thought I was engaging in a respectful discussion about the purpose of medical education and the role of medical professionals. Turns out, I was questioning a religious dogma, the adherents of which brook no debate, much less dissent.

It’s bad enough that we can’t have debate over DEI in, oh, English departments, but quite alarming that medicine has become gripped by the mania over DEI, which pointedly excludes anyone with a difference of opinion.

One element of the DEI belief system is that America is a fundamentally racist nation, in need of dramatic change. That has now become embedded in medical education. Goldfarb continues, “The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the decline, as did the death of George Floyd in 2020. Suddenly, medical schools were loudly proclaiming that health care is ‘systemically racist,’ that ‘medical reparations’ are urgently needed, and that medical education and practice must fundamentally change. Whereas DEI and social justice were frequently discussed in 2018, by the end of 2020 they were the central facets of medical education, where they remain to this day.”

In medicine, the DEI infection will retard progress and cost lives.

Goldfarb concludes, “Can we cure the DEI infection in American medicine? We have to try. The future of health care hangs in the balance. So does the health of every American.”