I entered into medical school as a top student at the University of Chicago with a high GPA — including A’s in my honors science classes — and a stellar CV exhibiting strong leadership qualities. I had beaten all odds, despite being a Black orphan migrant with no financial means.
Medical school was a grueling process — even more so at a top program. I would likely have felt even more socially isolated at my predominantly white institution if not for three essential factors.
First, I was welcomed by Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) administrators and participants where I could walk into their office and regain a sense of belonging. Second, I had a dean of DEI who met me once, by chance, in the hallway and said, “You can do this, Ronke.” Finally, without my deep faith, which stems from my parents, I would not be where I am today.
My experience in not unique from other underrepresented physicians of color. Despite this, DEI programs across the country are under attack.
In one brazen order, the University of Texas recently eliminated all DEI programs on campus. Across the nation, policymakers have introduced anti-DEI bills in 28 states that will impact university admissions. At the federal level, republicans in Congress recently introduced the EDUCATE Act (Embracing anti-Discrimination, Unbiased Curricula, and Advancing Truth in Education) with the goal of banning DEI and race-based mandates in medical schools. It is steeped in what I see as racist ideology, implying physicians like me, who benefited from these policies, are “ill-equipped to meet the needs of their patients.”
This is unequivocally false. In fact, study after study shows just the opposite: patients have better outcomes when the healthcare workforce is diverse. While Black people in the U.S. experience poorer health outcomes compared to their white counterparts, addressing these health disparities is possible in part because of DEI programs within health systems and medical schools.
I am a Black assistant professor at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Every day, I note how few Black colleagues I have within this space. One year ago, one of the only other Black women physicians at a similar career stage in my department announced she was leaving Harvard. While she made a smart, upward professional move, it was a tough change for me: I had that feeling of isolation again.
Some in professional and academic forums express deep conscious and unconscious biases that people who come from my racial background are dirty, lazy, and unintelligent. Many perceive DEI programs as a threat to those who are historically advantaged, and want to do away with them. But to address these biases and support those of us who have historically been oppressed, DEI efforts become even more important. Many Black people have depended on DEI spaces and efforts to combat the intense physical and emotional isolation that comes from being surrounded by people who don’t share their struggles, history, or culture.
As Americans, we all have many commonalities, but we are also a heterogenous mix: a salad bowl, not quite a melting pot of individuals. Many underserved groups in America rely on curated safe spaces formed by DEI initiatives to mitigate the effects of the status quo. In these spaces and programs within mainstream corporate America, government, education, and healthcare institutions, Black people have been able to enter some of the highest offices.
Vice President Kamala Harris and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson have acknowledged that DEI initiatives and affirmative action are to the benefit of us all. They have both stated that having a diverse student body enriches the educational environment for all students.
As former President Barack Obama said about affirmative action: “It allowed generations of students like Michelle and me to prove we belonged.”
DEI programs, too, can help people in healthcare achieve great things.
The fundamental cause theory highlights that socioeconomic factors are the fundamental drivers that allow specific inequities to persist across time, despite strong public health initiatives and medical innovations that seek to mitigate the problem. Notably, DEI programs seek to address fundamental problems, such as a lack of belonging for Black people in predominantly white professional and education spaces. Simply putting Band-Aids on the issue will never solve it.
To be sure, DEI programs are not without flaws, but they need to be improved upon, not eliminated. Dismissing or discontinuing DEI programs creates a new form of segregation: physical and mental isolation of Black people. Until bias against Black people and other historically disadvantaged people is eliminated in professional spaces, it is inhumane to Black students — given the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow — to remove their “oxygen masks” and “life jackets” of DEI support and ask them to breathe in a sea of racism.
Policymakers on both sides of the aisle, as well as healthcare providers, university and medical school administrators, and advocates need to act against the abolition of DEI programs. President Biden must go beyond the 2021 executive order on DEI and propose policies that prevent federally funded institutions from cutting off the life source of many Black students and faculty like me. If not, we will never achieve health equity.
Aderonke Pederson, MD, is an assistant professor and psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital. She is a Public Voices Fellow with The OpEd Project and conducts NIH-funded research on stigma and digital health technology.
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