Vanderbilt University is one of many institutions applying Critical Race Theory to the medical field in pursuit of “health equity.”
Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) and Vanderbilt University School of Medicine (VUSM) detail their support for this race-based approach to medicine on their “Office of Health Equity” website.
The site “outlines goals, actions, accountability, and milestones for advancing racial equity at VUMC and VUSM.” It explains that VUMC and VUSM plan to “review salaries … by race,” “provide all incoming first year medical students education on anti-racism and physicians’ roles in racial equity and eliminating health inequities,” and “rename Dixie Place, and identify other renaming imperatives at VUMC.”
Additionally, VUSM plans to “integrate content on racism and racial equity into the curricula of all School of Medicine programs” and “embed additional content on racial equity and health inequities.”
The two institutions also created a Racial Equity Task Force, which laid out its approach to medicine in a three-page report. The document first provides an overview of the “five initial steps” that VUMC and VUSM stated they would take in 2020, including providing “anti-racism training to all senior leaders.”
They also pledged to examine “how existing policies, practices, and organizational culture disadvantage racial/ethnic minorities” and to “identify gaps in curriculum and opportunities to embed strategies to address structural racism and promote racial justice.”
But the report gives a long list of different ways in which the institutions can supposedly “dismantle racism in health care.” For example, it recommends that the institutions “increase the number of racial and ethnic minorities in the candidate pool for all positions” and even “track leaders’ hiring of racially and ethnically diverse candidates and hold them accountable if there is lack of diversity in their teams/offices/departments.” It does not explain how such leaders might be “held accountable.”
It also appears that the task force hopes to tie conformity to the health equity agenda to career advancement, with the report asking VUMC and VUSM to “include metrics around reducing incidents of racism, discrimination, and micro-and macro-aggressions to annual review cycles and promotions.”
The report also wants the two medical institutions to “increase the number of racial and ethnic minority employees considered for career advancement and promotion with VUMC/VUSM.”
Meanwhile, the report also demands the two institutions embed instruction on Critical Race Theory into graduate programs. “Integrate structural racism as a core competency for students in all VUSM graduate programs,” the report reads.
In addition, the task force wants VUMC and VUSM to aid a broader political agenda and to work “in partnership with racial minority populations” to “advocate as an institution for an external public policy agenda that supports equity and anti-racism.”
But VUMC is just one of many institutions that have joined the movement for health equity. Breitbart News has extensively documented the movement to embed racial preferences into the medical field under the guise of “health equity.”
Meanwhile, a Breitbart News report revealed that Health Affairs, a leading health policy journal, hosted a “health equity” fellowship program that excluded white applicants on the basis of their race.
The health equity movement is not entirely a product of academia, however. It has also received support from the Biden administration’s Health and Human Services secretary, Xavier Becerra, who said, “Health equity has to be part of everything we do.”
Spencer Lindquist is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SpencerLndqst and reach out at slindquist@breitbart.com.