Trump DEI crackdowns lauded for bringing merit back to medicine: 'Make healthcare great again'
President Trump is waging war on the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) philosophy entrenched in various U.S. entities, signing an executive order scaling back the practice as he encourages companies in the public and private sectors to prioritize merit in the workplace.
"It's just enormous, and I think the president is really, really going to make healthcare great again," Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, chairman of the "Do No Harm" nonprofit, told Fox News while addressing the potential changes to the medical industry.
"I think it's going to do three things. It's going to have a huge impact on medical school admissions. First of all, it's going to demand that medical schools now comply with… the Students for Fair Admission, the famous case in the Supreme Court against Harvard and [the University of] North Carolina," he added, referencing the landmark 2023 ruling that barred race-based "affirmative action" admissions practices for most institutions of higher education.
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"The second thing… it's going to have a huge impact on the private sector issues of DEI, so it's going to make medical schools and private medical societies and so on have to comply with the fact that there's going to be no more DEI…," he continued.
"And I think, even as important as it's going to be in medical school admissions, it's going to be issuing changes in the contracting and grant-making that the federal government does. Most medical schools and health care systems are incredibly dependent on the federal government for their grants and contracts and this executive order says [there will be] no more of that activity going on in these grant-making activities."
Goldfarb has sounded the alarm over DEI in medicine for some time, leading "Do No Harm," which, in the group's words, protects healthcare professionals from the "disastrous consequences" of identity politics.
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Trump's onslaught against DEI mandates also saw all federal DEI workers placed on paid administrative leave with their offices shuttered on Wednesday.
The change comes as a swath of private companies like Walmart, McDonald's, Ford and Meta have announced their own plans to scale back or eliminate DEI initiatives.
Fox News' Lindsay Kornick contributed to this report.