Blue-state university sparks outrage with 'decolonizing medicine' course challenging the 'White body' standard
A course offered by the University of Maryland for the 2026 spring semester is sparking outrage from experts, including two who told Fox News Digital it represents "identity politics" getting in the way of proper education.
"This course provides a comprehensive foundation of how colonial legacies continue to shape global health systems and medical practices," the University of Maryland website says about the class called "Decolonizing Medicine: Steps to Actionable Change," first reported by College Fix.
The course description continues, "We will critically engage with the concept of 'the White body' as the standard in medical training, explore the consequences of the historical context underpinning colonial medicine, and interrogate neocolonial dynamics in contemporary global health efforts. Designed for students interested in careers in medicine, public health, or health policy, this course will challenge students to rethink the ethical and epistemological frameworks that underlie modern healthcare."
Weekly topics, according to the syllabus, include "Medicine as a Colonial Project," "Indigenous Medicine and Knowledge Systems," "Structural Violence in Public Health," and "Intersectionality as a Decolonial Tool in Modern Medicine," with assigned readings drawn from works such as Medical Apartheid, The Killing of the Black Body, and critical race theory scholarship.
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"While this one-credit course at Maryland is predictable, it is nonetheless troubling," Reagan Dugan, director of higher education initiatives at Defending Education, told Fox News Digital.
"Coursework that frames medicine as problematic because of its ‘colonial legacy’ is both historically and scientifically unfounded. The coursework seems to go even further and push critical theory into the classrooms of our future health leaders. Instead of training future doctors to serve all patients well, this emphasis appears to encourage them to see patients as oppressor and oppressed. Our institutions should train medical students in medicine, not progressive orthodoxy."
The class is facilitated by students rather than a listed faculty instructor, according to the syllabus, and includes explicit guidance encouraging students to share their preferred pronouns and self-identified aspects of their identity in classroom discussions.
Dr. Kurt Miceli, medical director at Do No Harm, told Fox News Digital, "These courses focused on identity politics unfortunately shift attention from evidence-based reasoning to ideological framing, which risks confusing political analysis with clinical judgment."
"Over time, trust in the profession gets undermined, particularly if patients feel their care is being filtered through a political lens rather than grounded in biology, data, and individualized medical need," Miceli said.
Fox News Digital reached out to the University of Maryland for comment.
Fox News Digital has extensively reported on universities across the country injecting social justice advocacy into curriculum, including in December when a Defending Education report revealed the accreditation process for bachelor’s and master's social work programs at top U.S. universities is rife with DEI, critical race theory and other far-left agenda items.