Most people don’t want diversity hires in charge of life-and-death decisions. Yet new investigative reporting shows that the ideology of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” has infiltrated some medical schools to disastrous ends.
These revelations come from the Washington Free Beacon’s Aaron Sibarium, who has released a significant exposé on the UCLA medical school. It alleges that the university has consistently violated laws against race-based admissions, holding applicants to different standards based on race in an attempt to increase diversity, ultimately resulting in poorly qualified doctors.
Conversations with various people within the admissions office and the medical school reveal that things have gone drastically wrong since DEI-focused Jennifer Lucero became Dean of Admissions in June 2020.
“Faculty members with firsthand knowledge of the admissions process say it has prioritized diversity over merit, resulting in progressively less qualified classes that are now struggling to succeed,” he reports.
A former admissions team member described the institution as a “failed medical school,” stating, “We want racial diversity so badly, we’re willing to cut corners to get it.”
Sibarium shares disturbing stories about Lucero’s push to admit unqualified black candidates and her criticism of colleagues who declined to admit an unqualified Native American candidate. Admissions committee insiders said, “The bar for underrepresented minorities is ‘as low as you could possibly imagine,’” whereas “whites and Asians need near perfect scores to even be considered.”
The results of this race-focused approach are evident.
“Within three years of Lucero’s hiring in 2020, UCLA dropped from 6th to 18th place in U.S. News & World Report’s rankings for medical research,” Sibarium reports. “And in some of the cohorts she admitted, more than 50 percent of students failed standardized tests on emergency medicine, family medicine, internal medicine, and pediatrics.”
“These tests, known as shelf exams, are typically taken at the end of each clinical rotation and measure basic medical knowledge, playing a pivotal role in residency applications,” he continues. “While only 5 percent of students fail each test nationally, the rates are much higher at UCLA, having increased tenfold in some subjects since 2020, according to internal data obtained by the Free Beacon.”
The allegations were significant enough that law professor David Bernstein concluded, “If even half the allegations in this article are true, UCLA Medical School should cease to exist, and should be replaced by a new institution that (a) obeys the law; and (b) cares about the competence of the students it graduates.” He further noted that UCLA’s actions are “explicitly illegal under state law.”
This is deeply concerning from both legal and safety perspectives.
One variable not mentioned in Sibarium’s reporting is the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on students’ education due to failed restrictions. This might partly explain the decline in test performance and competence noticed by medical educators.
Nevertheless, the allegations are alarming on a moral and legal level and likely contribute to the collapsing standards.
This needs to be a turning point for DEI madness. If progressives are so obsessed with identity politics that they place unqualified people in medical roles, lives could be lost due to this ideology. As Eli Steele noted, it’s also deeply unfair to qualified minority medical professionals who might now be viewed as unqualified diversity hires.
America is reaching a critical juncture. Will we be a meritocracy or establish a racial hierarchy?
The public knows the right answer instinctively. Just ask: Would you trust a doctor’s life who recently graduated from UCLA?
