UCLA’s medical school quickly abandoned an exercise that racially segregated students after a civil rights complaint was filed against them. A report from the Wall Street Journal claimed that despite pushback against diversity, equity, and inclusion, it appears to be alive and well on college campuses.
There is an emerging practice cropping up in elite medical schools across the country that splits students up by race to educate students about structural racism in healthcare.
The report said UCLA requires first-year students to take a class called “Structural Racism and Health Equity” as part of the standard curriculum. It went on to mention that students are split up by race in one exercise to talk about antiracist prompts.
Fox News Digital reported students were asked to join a racial group that matched how they appeared to others.
“[R]ecognizing the imperfect and problematic nature of our socially constructed racial categories, we ask that you identify the group in which you feel you are most perceived as in clinical spaces,” the school told the students, according to the report.
The institution decided to drop the questionable exercise after a nonprofit group filed a complaint with the civil rights office.
The medical nonprofit group, Do No Harm, filed the complaint with the San Francisco Civil Rights Office, claiming that the school had violated the law. The group said the racial caucusing groups “illegally segregate and separate its first year medical students based on their race, color and/or national origin,” which violates Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Dr. Stanley Goldfarb criticized the medical school for continuing to perpetuate racism.
“That UCLA encouraged racial segregation in its medical school class is an absolutely outrageous abandonment of nearly 65 year old national commitment to eliminate racism in society. All medical students should be working together to learn to provide optimal medical care to all patients rather than to perpetuate, absurd, racist notions,” Goldfarb said to Fox News Digital.
“The day the civil-rights complaint was filed, UCLA abruptly informed students that the caucusing exercise was cancelled, which suggests that administrators know the practice is legally suspect. In accepting federal funds, schools must agree to abide by Title VI, which prohibits discrimination by race. It contains no exception for discriminating in pursuit of an antiracist agenda. As a public university, UCLA is also governed by the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment,” the Wall Street Journal said.
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