Rantz: UW Medicine Seattle faces lawsuit for withholding career support from white medical students

The University of Washington (UW) in Seattle is facing a lawsuit for operating a race-based support directory to help medical students at UW Medicine, so long as they’re not white. 

The lawsuit by Do No Harm takes issue with UW Medicine’s BIPOC Physicians Directory. It’s exclusively provided to connect non-white students with non-white physicians to ask questions and seek career advice from medical professionals “with identities similar to their own.” Additionally, the private, racially exclusionary tool is meant to help medical students network. UW said it’s exclusively for BIPOC students, which include “Black/African Diaspora, Native American/Indigenous, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, Asian, Latine/Latinx, Middle Eastern and North African.” 

“In addition to excluding white students who wish to take advantage of a valuable networking tool, the Directory excludes white physicians, even those who would be great resources for medical students of all races,” the lawsuit contended.

Do No Harm is suing on behalf of one of its members, an unidentified doctor and UW alum who is ineligible to provide his advice to medical students merely because of his skin color. They’re seeking declaratory and injunctive relief to stop the use of the race-based directory, arguing that it perpetuates racial stratification and denies opportunities based on race​.

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Is the UW BIPOC Physicians Directory racist? Yup

UW is proving once again that it’s less concerned with education and more interested in woke, racial segregation disguised as “equity.” UW’s School of Medicine is running a blatantly racist BIPOC Physicians Directory, and the irony is astounding. The very people who scream about inclusivity and the importance of dismantling racial barriers and institutional racism are now actively creating them. UW earned this lawsuit.

By giving students race-based access to a special directory of physicians for mentorship, career advice, and networking, they are giving those students a leg up. That’s the exact opposite of the “equity” they say they want. Instead, it shows UW is more interested in punishing white students for historic racism they never took part in. UW claims this creates “a safe space” for BIPOC students — because, apparently, white doctors are just too terrifying or too incapable of helping “BIPOC” students navigate the complexities of a medical career.

As troublesome, UW seems to think black future doctors would not feel comfortable talking to other professionals who don’t look like them. One should wonder how they would treat white patients. If this directory is any indication, these future doctors may be taught to purposefully mistreat them.

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Let’s call the UW out for what it’s doing: punishing students for being white

This is racial discrimination, plain and simple, and it should have no place in any institution that receives public funding — let alone a university. But, of course, UW doesn’t care about fairness. It cares about signaling its far-left credentials to the most radical factions of its student body and faculty. Forget training competent doctors who help save lives. The real priority is making sure non-white students get separate but equal resources. Sound familiar? They’re trying to revive the Jim Crow South, but with a woke, leftist twist. News flash, UW: That doesn’t make the racism any better.

Do No Harm rightfully claims that this directory violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, and Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act. Why? Because UW is discriminating against students and physicians based on race. The Supreme Court recently reaffirmed in SFFA v. Harvard that “eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.” UW didn’t get the memo. They think discrimination is fine as long as it’s directed at white people.

What’s especially despicable here is that UW is using race as a proxy for competence and connection. They’re assuming that white doctors can’t provide mentorship to non-white students. They’re also assuming that non-white students can only benefit from mentors who look like them. It’s a stereotype, it’s demeaning, and it’s utterly absurd. And they’re doing tremendous harm to these students. It doesn’t merely tell them that a devious form of racism is acceptable. It also implies to the world that these doctors aren’t capable of treating white patients. 

What happened to the equity goal? UW lawsuit is worthy of our support

UW doesn’t want equality. They want to implement a divisive, racially driven agenda under the guise of “equity.” And it shouldn’t come as a shock.

Democrats championed Senate Bill 5228. It forces UW Medicine students to undergo critical race theory training as a condition of graduation. It also effectively institutes quotas that will limit minority students who are most overrepresented: Asians. The end goal appeared tailored towards racial segregation in health care.

According to the law, the schools must “each develop a goal focused on increasing the number of underrepresented students at each school of medicine, guided by the state of Washington’s need for physicians from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds and each school’s predominant equity goals.” The school is only afforded a set amount of admissions.

The directory is illegal. It’s an insult to students and doctors who want to focus on their careers without worrying about the color of their skin. The BIPOC directory isn’t about creating opportunities. It’s about exclusion, punishment, and building walls between people who should be working together. If you care about fairness and equality, you should support this lawsuit. UW needs to learn the hard way that you can’t pick and choose who gets access to mentorship based on the color of their skin — because that, by definition, is racism.

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