Medical school mission statements are becoming increasingly laden with diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and social justice language, a report released Monday found.
Do No Harm, a medical advocacy organization working to keep DEI and other political topics out of medicine, reviewed 158 medical school mission statements and found that 77% could be classified as “woke” in 2024, a number that increased substantially from 68% in 2021, according to a report first shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation. The report also found that “Higher ranked medical schools were more likely to increase the wokeness of their mission.”
“There are desirable qualities to diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice, but when these terms are presented together in the context of a mission statement, they are markers for a particular worldview,” the report reads. “That ‘woke’ worldview indicates a significant departure from the traditional American emphasis on individual responsibility and equal treatment in favor of emphasizing differentiated treatment by group identity and social rather than individual justice.”
Columbia medical school’s previously benign statement once promised to “prepare graduates to be leaders and role models who define excellence in patient care, medical research, education, and health care policy,” according to DNH. In 2024, the statement expanded from 87 to 567 words to include a swath of leftist terms such as “Anti-Racism, Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity.”
“In 2021, we formally launched the [Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons] Anti-Racism Coalition (ARC), an interdisciplinary effort by students and staff to promote a sustainable culture of inclusion and diversity,” the statement boasts. “Its ongoing goal is to create, adopt, and strengthen anti-racist educational systems and practices and to support equity and justice throughout the VP&S learning environment.”
Similarly at the University of Massachusetts, the once-straightforward, science-focused statement now details a commitment to “the elimination of health care disparities and the establishment of health equity” and “diversity and inclusion,” DNH found.
