© SUZANNE DECHILLO/THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX
The Embracing anti-Discrimination, Unbiased Curricula, and Advancing Truth in Education Act was introduced by North Carolina Rep. Greg Murphy, a urologist who is the only actively practicing physician in Congress.
"American medical schools are the best in the world and no place for discrimination," said Mr. Murphy. The EDUCATE Act compels medical schools and accrediting agencies to uphold colorblind admissions processes and prohibits the coercion of students who hold certain political opinions.
The EDUCATE Act would cut off federal funding to medical schools that compel students or faculty to adopt specific beliefs, discriminate based on race or ethnicity, or have diversity, equity and inclusion offices or any functional equivalent.
Additionally, the legislation, which has 34 co-sponsors, requires accreditation agencies to check that their standards don't push these practices, while still allowing instruction about health issues tied to race or collecting data for research.
A co-sponsor of the legislation, fellow doctor Rep. Brad Wenstrup of Ohio said, "Physicians should treat patients as they would themselves and their families, rather than being forced to pledge, affirm or adopt tenets that have infiltrated higher education."
The medical advocacy organization Do No Harm praised the legislation.
"I have witnessed firsthand the alarming rate at which DEI ideology has spread through medical schools across the country. If we fail to stop it, we risk a generation of physicians ill-equipped to meet the needs of their patients," said Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, chairman of Do No Harm.
The watchdog group has filed over 140 complaints with the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights related to DEI mandates in medical schools the past two years, and almost 40 investigations have been opened, leading to some schools dropping their DEI initiatives, The College Fix reported.
The bill will likely have tremendous support among Republicans in the lower chamber, but its path in the Democrat-controlled Senate might go nowhere.
Comment: The bill can't be passed too soon. Plus the schools themselves need to be purged of the pernicious doctrine of DEI. It produces dangerous nonsense like this:
- Medical schools reject applicants who don't support "diversity, equity, and inclusion" ideology
- Med school 'stigmatized white people' during all-day DEI 'retreat': report
- NHS managers are told not to offer sympathy to female colleagues worried about sharing toilets with biological men in woke handbook
- Diversity and harm: How identity politics is threatening fields where competence is vitally important
Some are fighting back: