The Kentucky Board of Nursing scrapped its requirement that nurses take "implicit bias" training as a "mandatory" continuing education course for licensure.
Documents obtained by the Washington Examiner show nursing board officials deciding to nix the requirement two days after the Washington Examiner ran a story exposing one training with heavily racialized messaging.
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The reversal was welcome news to Do No Harm, a medical advocacy group focused on exposing and weeding out "radical, divisive, and discriminatory ideology" in healthcare.
"Since the KBN's reversal on the implicit bias training mandate, Do No Harm has heard from two nurse members who expressed great relief that they will no longer be required to take a course that they don't agree with," DNH program manager and nurse of 39 years Laura Morgan, told the Washington Examiner. "Nurses from other states with identical mandates have recently contacted us stating that they are giving up their licenses because of it."
"In the face of a long-standing national nursing shortage, the last thing that any state needs is to have experienced nurses leaving the profession because they don't want to be indoctrinated," Morgan continued. "Changing the regulations in Kentucky is a huge win for that state's nurses."
The nursing board, a government entity overseeing nursing licensure in the state, created a continuing education requirement for nurses to take an "implicit bias" course on race and nursing. Documents show that the board worked closely with the Kentucky Nurses Association, a nursing advocacy and lobbying group as well as a subsidiary of the American Nurses Association, to create the new standards.
As the Washington Examiner reported, the nurses association created a training, presented by CEO Delanor Manson and Board of Directors Treasurer Arica Brandford, in which nurses were presented with offensive images of Ku Klux Klan members burning a cross and being told that "best intentions will not solve implicit bias in healthcare."
That training was accessible through the board's website for a time, advertised as an example of how to fulfill the requirement before being removed.
"KBN attempted to distort the nursing culture by partnering with the KNA to push divisive rhetoric and discredited 'science' in the name of nursing professional development," Morgan said. "It completely destroys the dynamic of trust that is needed to effectively care for people" because it "places nurses and their patients into camps of 'oppressed' and 'oppressors,' based solely on identity politics."
The Washington Examiner reviewed over 300 pages of documents between May 2021 and July 2023 obtained through a DNH public records request showing the two organizations working together on the training, dealing with controversy after exposure, and a rift established after the board decided to get rid of the requirement.
As more media picked up Washington Examiner reporting, board executive director Kelly Jenkins began circulating an email on July 24 stating, "We are removing the implicit bias CE requirement." By July 28, Jenkins and the board were telling Kentucky nurses that "As of 7/27/23: The deadline for the one-time Continuing Education requirement on Implicit Bias was July 1, 2023. If you have not obtained the training at this time, please note you will no longer be required to do so."
The nurses association was not pleased with the board's decision to remove the requirement, with association attorney Theodore Myre saying in an Aug. 2 letter to board general counsel Jeffrey Prather, "With little warning, the Kentucky Board of Nursing reversed an educational requirement eighteen months after mandating it."
He also added a line stating those who do not believe in "implicit bias" training are akin to those who believe the Earth is flat.
"Now, we all understand that there are some people who believe implicit bias is bunk, just like there are people who believe that climate change is a hoax and that the world is flat because they can’t see beyond the horizon," Myre said. "Where does the KBN fall on implicit bias? Does it exist? If it exists, might it adversely affect patient care? If so, should training materials be available?"
The association did not respond to a request for comment on whether it believes some nurses are flat-earthers.
Myre's note came after a meeting not documented in the records request in which the board accused the association of a "conflict of interest" and a "breach of ethical standard," which Prather told Myre in an Aug. 9 letter "arises from the unfortunate appearance of impropriety that the public may have inferred by the Board announcing that the implicit bias training requirement could be satisfied by training developed by the KNA."
"Unfortunately, there has been an inference that the Board has endorsed the KNA’s particular training," Prather added, admitting that "portions of the training offended certain nurses."
Despite Prather's insistence that the board did not "endorse" the association's training, emails from earlier in the year show that both groups worked together to establish and build the training requirement, followed by the board linking to the training on their own website. Manson sent Jenkins "more discussion on why we need implicit bias training," adding in the Jan. 11 email, "Every time I think about it, I know we are doing the right things" and in another, "It will make you sad, but it is the very reason we need to keep moving forward."
The board has maintained that even though the requirement was "required" and "mandatory," an enforcement mechanism like withholding a nursing license was not a likely outcome. Morgan says the KBN is being "untruthful" because "both of these things cannot be true at once."
"Holding nurses’ licenses — as well as their careers — hostage by requiring them to be indoctrinated with radical philosophies is one tactic the progressive left has been using to embed politicized processes into the profession," Morgan continued. "It’s done via this backdoor method because they are fully aware that experienced nurses, who know that implicit bias training requirements never existed until a couple of years ago, won’t mindlessly go along with it."
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In response to a request for comment, Manson suggested that the Washington Examiner was not sufficiently "enlighten[ed]" on the importance of "implicit bias" training and pointed to the American Nurses Association statement on the subject.
The board did not respond to a request for comment from the Washington Examiner.