The latest example of how diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts have infiltrated medical schools can be seen in the way advocates of critical race theory are treated as health professionals.

Yale University’s School of Public Health recently celebrated Kimberle Crenshaw for winning the Winslow Award, its “highest honor,” according to the student newspaper. Crenshaw is a law school professor and author who popularized the terms critical race theory and intersectionality . The award is named for the public health school's founder Charles-Edward Amory Winslow.

The student newspaper noted that “most former Winslow Medal recipients have contributed directly to research in the field of medicine and public health,” but “the award was specifically created to honor those who emulate the values of its namesake, namely ‘his concern for the social factors affecting health.’”

Past winners have held medical or public health backgrounds, as would be expected. They include the director of a toxicology program, Dr. Anthony Fauci, multiple medical professors, and the creator of a “repository of systematic reviews of evidence-based health care.”

It should not come as a surprise that Yale views critical race theory as akin to advancements in medical sciences. After all, pediatrics professor and health equity director Lou Hart recently said that George Floyd was “lynched” when he was killed at the hands of Minneapolis police officers in May 2020.

But while it may be one thing to offer an award to a promoter of racial grievances, it is another to treat a journalist and creator of a flawed racial history project as a health educator.

Yet, George Washington University’s medical school offered just last month a continuing education credit for attendees at a lecture by Nikole Hannah-Jones. The Howard University professor is the architect behind the historically inaccurate “ 1619 Project .”

The event on COVID-19 and HIV screening “relate[d] the history of U.S. slavery to poor health outcomes among Black sub-populations, and [explored] the enduring impact of racism as an ongoing threat to health equity,” a news release reported.

Hannah-Jones has no medical training; she is a journalist by trade. That does not matter to GWU, which has infused CRT and DEI into its programs. The event promised to train health practitioners on how to use a “health and racial equity lens.”

The “Two in One” training series “includes a range of topics that historicize and contextualize HIV and COVID disparities among BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ populations.”

For comparison, other continuing education credit courses often focus on developments in medicine, such as chemotherapy treatments, arthritis, and chronic pain.

It is valuable for healthcare professionals to understand how best to serve all patients, no matter their backgrounds. Every person should be able to receive high-quality healthcare and work with a medical professional to live a healthy lifestyle.

But Crenshaw and Hannah-Jones are not medical professionals. They are political activists and academics who have a particular view of how society should operate and how they believe American history really happened. Their views are flawed, but in a society of open debate, they are free to present their ideas and make hundreds of thousands of dollars lecturing on these topics.

That does not mean you would include either of them on your medical team if given a deadly diagnosis, nor would you consult them for advice on the best way to live a healthy lifestyle — because they are activists, not medical professionals.

Universities should treat them as such and stop elevating CRT and DEI as if they are the same as science-based medicine.

Matt Lamb is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog. He is an associate editor for the College Fix and has previously worked for Students for Life of America and Turning Point USA.