Rantz: WA forces Critical Race Theory on med students to graduate, limits Asian enrollment

This is part of an ongoing series by the Jason Rantz Show exploring equity and critical race theory training in Washington schools.

Washington state’s new law mandating Critical Race Theory (CRT) training requires medical students to sit through social justice courses in order to graduate. It will even effectively limit the number of Asian medical student enrollees. It does this in the name of equity.

Governor Jay Inslee recently signed into law several bills mandating social justice training for public school staff. But one particular bill goes further.

Senate Bill 5228 forces medical students at the University of Washington and Washington State University to undergo CRT training as a condition of graduation. It also institutes quotas that will limit minority students who are most overrepresented: Asians. And the end goal appears tailored towards racial segregation in health care.

Rantz: District reclassified Asians with whites when they did too well academically

CRT training required to graduate

CRT training is now a requirement to graduate from medical school at the UW and WSU.

The goal of the training is to provide our future doctors with the tools to “understand and counteract racism and implicit bias in health care.” As doctors, they shouldn’t just focus on treating patients. Democrats and Inslee have tasked them with undoing “structural racism in the systems through which they navigate.” It includes implicit bias training.

The new law outlines the specific requirements:

The curriculum must teach attitudes, knowledge, and skills that enable students to care effectively for patients from diverse cultures, groups, and communities. The objectives of the curriculum must be to provide tools for eliminating structural racism in health care systems and to build cultural safety. A person may not graduate with a degree from either medical school without completing a course, or courses, that include curriculum on health equity for medical students.

Washington Democrats believe future doctors must be ready “to care effectively for the people of diverse cultures, groups, and communities that will become their patients.”

The ideology behind the training is already leading to racist health care policies across the country. In Washington, the Department of Health allowed vaccine providers to deny open appointments to white residents, citing equity concerns. In Boston, one hospital is pushing policy where minority patients are given preferential treatment.

Law mandates quotas at medical school

The law doesn’t just force political positions on students. What’s worse, some students won’t get to attend medical school thanks to new quotas.

Both the UW and WSU will effectively create a quota system to be met by 2025. 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.”

Calling them “goals” doesn’t negate the end effect. It establishes quotas to increase the number of students from different racial minorities. And certain races get preferential treatment when they apply.

“In developing the goal, special consideration may be given to students attending the school of medicine at the University of Washington as a part of a regional partnership with other states,” according to the law.

Not all minority groups will benefit here.

Asian students are over-represented in admissions, as compared to other minority groups at the UW. White students are most represented. With a limit on available slots for students, Asian and white students must be held back to meet these quotas. Consequently, they won’t earn admission on merit. Instead, they earn scorn for an immutable characteristic they cannot change. This is equity?

More dangerous, this policy will result in less qualified candidates gaining admission. How does that best serve patients in Washington?

Less qualified doctors?

With the focus on social justice, it’s no wonder Washington Democrats didn’t think through the unintended consequences of race-based quotas.

They’d like to see more Black, Latino, and Native American medical students. Fair enough. But in Washington state, they’re the students who do the poorest in math and science. Those are the subjects that best predict graduation outcomes for doctors or scientists. According to data from the State Superintendent’s Office, those racial demographics represent the poorest math and science performers at Washington public high schools.

The best? Asian students, followed by whites: the two demographics that a quota system would negatively impact.

Rantz: WA Dept says ‘concept of race’ meant to oppress, but ignores Asian children

Segregated health care

Some Democrats seem to argue for racial segregation in health care. Speaking on behalf of the bill, sponsor State Sen. Emily Randall (D-Bremerton) noted that there are better outcomes when Black patients see Black doctors.

“Research points us to that if you have a provider who either shares your background or experience or is sensitive and understanding of the culture from which you come, … you are more likely to follow the care recommendations of that physician,” Sen. Randall noted.

Randall points to a study showing that Black men are more likely to follow certain recommendations “if they had a Black physician or if they were able to connect with that physician about cultural experiences.”

But in order to have Black doctors exclusively see Black patients or Latino doctors see Latino patients, you need more of those demographics to go to medical school. As a result, perhaps that’s why there are now quotas?

Randall knew that now was the time to push her radical agenda.

“We are at a moment where it’s a little bit of kismet, I think,” she concluded.

She was right. Her radical agenda is now law.

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