by Jarrett Stepman
The American Medical Association recently passed a series of resolutions in the name of diversity, equity and inclusion that highlight how elite, professional organizations have been deeply compromised by ideology.
A report by National Review on Monday noted that the AMA, which accredits medical schools and has enormous power over the medical profession, passed a series of resolutions in mid-June denouncing legislation that would prevent “gender-affirming care” for minors and in support of racial preferences in higher education.
From National Review:
One resolution that passed amended a preexisting policy to oppose mandatory reporting of information related to sexual orientation and any information related to gender transition, including for patients who are minors, according to the organization’s press release. …
During the annual meeting, the AMA also adopted a policy urging colleges and medical schools to implement race-conscious admissions procedures in advance of the looming Supreme Court decision on affirmative action.
Supporting “gender-affirming care” for minors is bad enough, but affirmative action? That issue would seemingly be out of the purview of medicine, but not according to the AMA, which joined an amicus brief with Ivy League schools in the affirmative action Supreme Court cases decided Thursday. Thankfully, they lost.
The AMA explained in its amicus brief that “diversity in the education of the nation’s physicians and other health care professionals is a medical imperative.” The best argument that the association could come up with for why enforced racial preferences are a “medical imperative” is that, according to some research, having diverse doctors improves outcomes for patients.
That’s a dubious premise, but given the power of the DEI ideology, would they ever acknowledge studies that demonstrated the opposite?
Large corporations and professional organizations are afraid to touch any study, book, or film that in any way calls into question the gender-transition ideology, for instance. It seems unlikely they will ever, in any way, question the racial diversity narratives that dominate the world of our cultural elite.
The DEI cult never seems to need actual positive results to conclude that all diversity efforts are beneficial. It doesn’t matter how shallow, silly, expensive, or directly harmful the initiatives are, they are always promoted as good and necessary.
The more plans fail, the more planners plan, as a great man once said.
And those diversity efforts, according to the AMA, require racial preferences and discrimination.
The AMA said in a press release that it maintains “unequivocal opposition to legislation that would dissolve affirmative action or punish institutions for employing race-conscious admissions.”
As I wrote previously, our nation’s elite institutions just won’t quit the racial preferences game, no matter what the Supreme Court rules or what the average American thinks.
Of course, the AMA is highly selective in deciding what health policies must be added or abandoned to rectify historical oppression. It recently threw out body mass index as a measure of patient health because, it says, BMI is racist and has roots in eugenics.
If that’s so, as Tristan Justice pointed out at the Federalist, then why does the AMA cling so tightly to abortion, which most certainly has racist roots in the eugenics movement? They seem rather selective in what historic injustices qualify for rectification.
The AMA has veered leftward for some time, but it has slipped into full cultural revolution mode in the past few years.
Institutional science and medicine are going woke, abandoning professional standards and even common sense, it seems. Their gatekeeping power remains immense, though. This is, in effect, how the ruling elites rule. They use generations of institutional trust and their overwhelming power over who may or may not enter the ranks of the managerial elite to browbeat society into accepting the most extreme elements of the cultural revolution.
Perhaps they think their lock on Western societies is absolute. The problem they are running into is that once the credibility of their expertise collapses, and people get fed up with the extremism, do the institutions any longer have the power to force the public en masse to accept their claims and agenda?
Sure, Democratic politicians will continue to cite the AMA, or the American Psychiatric Association, or the College Board, or any number of other such organizations to justify their aims. But at some point, people just stop believing in them entirely. Confidence in institutions has cratered in this country. It’s not hard to guess why.
That’s why there needs to be increased emphasis from Americans, through their elected representatives, to sidestep the power of these institutions.
Woke ideology spreads like a cancer from higher education into corporate America and the professional organizations. It’s now baked into the ethos of the legal profession and especially government bureaucracies.
Some states, such as Texas and especially Florida, are catching on to the problem and are using political power to ensure that institutions reflect the beliefs of the people and not the other way around. They are ensuring that compromised institutions don’t have the power to dictate how you run your life or how you raise your children.
That’s what principled populism is all about. We, the people, still have the power to change the course we are on if we choose to do so.
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Jarrett Stepman is a columnist for The Daily Signal. He is also the author of the book “The War on History: The Conspiracy to Rewrite America’s Past.”
Photo “Nurses in a Doctor’s Office” by RDNE Stock project.
