UPDATE: This piece has been updated to include a statement from David A. Acosta, MD, Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) chief diversity and inclusion officer.

• The Association of American Medical Colleges gave the University of California, Davis School of Medicine a 98.9% rating for its commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.
• The medical school said in response to AAMC’s survey that it prioritizes DEI in admission and hiring practices.
• “This particular score is the highest one that we’ve seen,” Laura Morgan, Do No Harm program manager, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The University of California, Davis School of Medicine (UCDSOM) received a nearly perfect rating in diversity, equity and inclusion by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), according to survey results obtained by medical watchdog group Do No Harm and provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The AAMC administered optional surveys to medical schools across the country, which ask how they incorporate DEI into their curriculum, administration and operations. Do No Harm received the survey results from participating universities through public records requests AAMC rated each school on how well they commit to DEI initiatives. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: University Of Iowa Trains Committee To Hire Faculty Based On Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Standards)

The UCDSOM received the highest score given to a medical school, indicating that it commits to DEI 98.9% of the time, according to Do No Harm. The school confirmed in the survey that it implements affirmative action in its admission practices, hires staff to enforce DEI and ties tenure to professors’ commitment to advancing DEI.

“This particular score is the highest one that we’ve seen,” Laura Morgan, Do No Harm program manager, told the DCNF. “UC Davis answered ‘yes’ to all but one of the 89 questions on the survey. It really shows that they’re dedicated to implementing the woke ideologies that the AAMC is promoting.”

SOM AAMC DICE-Inventory-2021 – Final_redacted by Alexa Schwerha on Scribd

The only room for improvement indicated by the survey is in the school’s use of DEI toward “faculty scholarship, promotion, and development.” The school indicated that it requires prospective and current faculty to submit DEI statements, allocates resources towards DEI and offers professional development programs for minority groups, it sponsors, but does not fund, “affinity groups.”

“The AAMC and our member medical schools and teaching hospitals have an obligation to address the factors that drive racism and bias in health care and prepare physicians who are culturally responsive,” David A. Acosta, MD, AAMC chief diversity and inclusion officer, told the DCNF. “There is strong evidence that historically marginalized people and people who live in poverty disproportionately experience poor health and inadequate access to quality care. These inequities are often rooted in systemic discrimination, including racism, within the nation’s health systems that contributes to lower quality care.”

UC Davis indicated that it does use a “holistic admissions policy,” which examines a students experiences rather than only test scores, to encourage “a diverse class of students.”

The school is committed to recruiting a “diverse community of students, faculty, and senior administrative staff, while fostering an inclusive and equitable learning environment,” according to its Policy on Achieving Workforce Diversity and Institutional Inclusion.

“We do outreach and recruitment with the aim of contributing to a physician workforce that will address the health care needs of a diverse society,” the policy reads. “Through these efforts, we seek to eliminate health care disparities and to continually increase the diversity of our student body with respect to those populations that are underrepresented in medicine and biomedical research.”

UC Davis also received a $1.5 million grant to support DEI initiatives in hiring and promotion practices, according to a 2020 letter which was included in the survey response.

The medical school also revealed in the survey that it advocated for DEI policies at the local level through its “Inclusion, Diversity, Anti-Racism, And Equity (IDARE) Taskforce’s Initiative,” which “catalyzes a health system wide effort to advance” DEI goals, according to its website, and through diversity and inclusion committees.

It also confirmed its “institutional leaders active within local, regional, and national forums to promote equity, diversity, and inclusion.”

“This [Diversity, Inclusion, Culture and Equity] inventory score reflects the degree to which the woke ideology has infiltrated it,” Morgan told the DCNF. “It’s a medical school that is highly rated. It’s number 51 on US News and World Report, but it also shows how heavily influenced they are by the AAMC. These kinds of policies just don’t have anything to do with providing appropriate training for our future physicians.”

The DICE inventory is “designed for academic medicine professionals striving to understand and improve the diversity and inclusion within their institution,” according to the AAMC’s website. More than 100 medical schools participated in the survey, according to AAMC.

“The AAMC also has an obligation to support institutions in being diverse, equitable and inclusive overall to support these goals,” Acosta told the DCNF. “Using the DICE Inventory helped medical schools identify areas for improvement for creating a holistic strategy where DEI is integrated into all operations and mission areas.”

“I think [medical schools are] trying to show alignment with AAMC policy and principles because that organization has an influence on their accreditation. They’ve got a big incentive to go along with what AAMC tells them to do,” Morgan said. “But this was a voluntary survey, they didn’t have to take it.”

Do No Harm requested the results of each school’s survey and has periodically released survey information from several medical schools from across the country to date.

“We want future medical students who are maybe looking for what schools they want to apply to to have some information about the ideology that these schools subscribe to,” Morgan said.

The UC Davis School of Medicine did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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