A report by an organization that tracks Critical Race Theory (CRT) in schools says that 23 of the top 25 medical schools at universities across the countries have some form of CRT program.
The University of Michigan Medical School is among them.
“The University of Michigan Medical School’s Anti-Racism Oversight Committee recommends that the school, ‘Incorporate critical race theory, health justice, and intersectionality framework into doctoring materials,'” according to CRT.org. “The committee will facilitate the ‘Recruitment of critical race theory, health justice education, and intersectionality expert(s) to develop scholarship/update med school curriculum, residency/educator training.'”
“The school’s Anti-Racism Oversight Committee recommends that the school implement ‘Education for faculty on how to teach intersectionality, health justice, and critical race theory from materials developed by recruited experts,'” the report continued.
Among some of the programs that are part of the school’s CRT initiative, which teaches students to see the United States through the lens of racial and sexual oppression, is the Office of Health Equity & Inclusion’s “75 Things White People Can Do to Fight Injustice.”
Those things include buying books that feature “people of color” as protagonists, donating to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and other social justice nonprofits, and being “honest about history,” which includes teaching others that America was built after genocide and on an apartheid system.
Page on UM Medical School’s website called “Anti-Racism Support and Tools” says the following:
Michigan Medicine unequivocally recognizes racism as a public health crisis, and we should be standing out as leaders against inequality. We are committed to creating fundamental change that leads to a culture of anti-racism, and a medical school and health system that are leaders in equity, justice and inclusiveness for people of all colors.
As part of this, we are passionate about ensuring that Michigan Medicine is a leader in health equity. We must be vocal about the fact that people of color in America remain negatively and disproportionately impacted by violence, limited access to quality health care and poor health outcomes. We must move to understand and eliminate these disparities.
The school also recommends that CRT is taught using author Ibram X. Kendi’s book Stamped from the Beginning as a guide.
“Some Americans insist that we’re living in a post-racial society. But racist thought is not just alive and well in America – it is more sophisticated and more insidious than ever,” according to the description for that book. “And as award-winning historian Ibram X. Kendi argues, racist ideas have a long and lingering history, one in which nearly every great American thinker is complicit.”
Faculty and staff are also required to participate in the CRT programming.
For example, the school’s Anti-Racism Oversight Committee recommends a “DEI-informed professional development program for Security and Guest Safety Services staff.”
DEI stands for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
A spokeswoman for the university said the school would not be able to comment before press time.
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Pete D’Abrosca is a reporter at The Michigan Star and The StarNews Network. Email tips to [email protected].
