American College of Surgeons Embraces Anti-Racism

This week, the American College of Surgeons (ACS) is holding its annual Clinical Congress in Boston. The ACS is the oldest and largest professional organization in the world representing surgery and surgeons. Over the four days of the meeting, dozens of courses in all areas of surgery will be offered to provide attendees (“Fellows”) with opportunities to grow professionally and improve the quality of surgical care. What is little known outside of the college is that, after the death of George Floyd, ACS leadership declared that the organization itself is structurally racist, expanding this claim to include its own member surgeons and even the practice of surgery itself. ACS leaders even went so far as to posit that poorer outcomes in black patients after surgery might be due to racism and that black patients might fare better if operated upon by black surgeons.

The leadership offered not a shred of evidence beyond the presence of recognized disparities to support these astounding and repugnant claims. But a lack of evidence did not stop the ACS Board of Regents from going all-out in embracing critical race theory, installing anti-racism precepts in the organization, implementing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, and creating a new executive-level department devoted to DEI. One of its first actions was to host a retreat in June 2021 for the leaders of 50 surgical societies on diversity. The keynote speaker was Ibram X. Kendi, the high priest of anti-racism. Kendi is known for his belief that the answer to racial discrimination is reverse (or antiracist) discrimination. He has proposed a federal department of anti-racism, which would have oversight and punitive authority over all other departments. He refuses to debate anyone who disagrees with him because, he claims, his critics are “arguing against themselves.”

RT

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Richard T. Bosshardt

Richard T. Bosshardt is a plastic surgeon in private practice in Tavares, Fla., and a senior fellow at Do No Harm.

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Ibram X. Kendi

This week, the American College of Surgeons (ACS) is holding its annual Clinical Congress in Boston. The ACS is the oldest and largest professional organization in the world representing surgery and surgeons. Over the four days of the meeting, dozens of courses in all areas of surgery will be offered to provide attendees (“Fellows”) with opportunities to grow professionally and improve the quality of surgical care. What is little known outside of the college is that, after the death of George Floyd, ACS leadership declared that the organization itself is structurally racist, expanding this claim to include its own member surgeons and even the practice of surgery itself. ACS leaders even went so far as to posit that poorer outcomes in black patients after surgery might be due to racism and that black patients might fare better if operated upon by black surgeons.

The leadership offered not a shred of evidence beyond the presence of recognized disparities to support these astounding and repugnant claims. But a lack of evidence did not stop the ACS Board of Regents from going all-out in embracing critical race theory, installing anti-racism precepts in the organization, implementing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, and creating a new executive-level department devoted to DEI. One of its first actions was to host a retreat in June 2021 for the leaders of 50 surgical societies on diversity. The keynote speaker was Ibram X. Kendi, the high priest of anti-racism. Kendi is known for his belief that the answer to racial discrimination is reverse (or antiracist) discrimination. He has proposed a federal department of anti-racism, which would have oversight and punitive authority over all other departments. He refuses to debate anyone who disagrees with him because, he claims, his critics are “arguing against themselves.”