Medical schools at UC San Francisco and USC are under investigation for barring white students from certain programs.
The Department of Education is investigating a pair of California university medical schools for allegedly engaging in racial discrimination in their programming and scholarships offerings.
The probe was launched after Mark Perry of Do No Harm, a nonprofit fighting against the progressive capture of medicine, filed a federal civil-rights complaint alleging that the schools violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race by academic programs that receive federal funding.
Perry’s complaint pertains to the University of California-San Francisco School of Medicine’s “Racial Affinity Caucusing Groups,” a racially segregated program piloted by the Pediatrics and Internal Medicine departments over the last two years.
The program “recognizes that the work that Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) are doing to process, heal, and dismantle racism is different from the work that white people need to do,” according to the school’s website.
Separate sessions are held for students who identify as black or African American, as white, and as people of color.
“It’s like an apartheid sort of approach to medical education,” Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, chairman of Do No Harm said of the San Francisco case. When he attended University of Pennsylvania Medical School many years ago, his colleagues fought against separating the black students, Goldfarb claimed. “Now they push for these spaces to fight racism when they’re the ones acting it out,” he said.
UCSF did not respond to a request for comment.
Similarly, the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine is under investigation for offering a $2,000 award that has race-based eligibility restrictions. The Keck school’s Diversity in Medicine Visiting Clerkship Award is only open to fourth-year applicants who are from racial/ethnic groups traditionally underrepresented in medicine. Students who identify as black/African-American, Hispanic/Latino, Native American/Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander are eligible, according to the school website.
The school notes that Los Angeles County and the USC Medical Center serve “a diverse patient population that traditionally has not had adequate access to primary or emergent care.” The emergency medicine residency program offering the scholarship “strives to recruit an equally diverse group of residents,” according to the website.
When asked for comment, USC said: “The university is committed to non-discrimination in all of its programs and activities. We are aware of this matter and look forward to cooperating with Office for Civil Rights in their review.”
Racial classification in higher education has far-reaching implications for the quality of American medicine, Goldfarb said, pointing out that otherwise qualified students are denied the opportunity to pursue sought-after specialities, such as orthopedic surgery, ophthalmology, or urology, which are in great demand but have limited spots.
“These positions are being given to minority applicants over white applicants. There are people who will not be able to pursue careers as dermatologists because they won’t be able to get training in those fields,” Goldfarb said. “If you don’t get into a residency you won’t be a surgeon.”
The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) will be conducting the investigation into both schools. OCR is responsible for enforcing Title VI.
Title VI states that “no person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”
Do No Harm has filed complaints in many cases of alleged racial discrimination at university medical schools, some of which have prompted federal probes. In December, OCR announced it was investigating the Indiana University School of Medicine for its Underrepresented in Medicine Visiting Elective, a program available only to third or fourth-year students of Black/African American, Hispanic/Latinx, or LGBTQ+ identity. The program offers a $2,000 stipend to out-of-state visiting students plus “compensation upon successful completion of the rotation.”
After Do No Harm notified the agency, OCR in November opened investigations into University of Texas San Antonio Long School of Medicine and the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Both offer elective scholar programs exclusive to minorities that provide stipends of up to $2,000 for selected students. The Texas school’s office for inclusion and diversity has since scrubbed its website of any reference to the program.
According to Goldfarb, the DEI complex “is even worse in medicine” than in other fields because “people’s lives are at stake.”