The Supreme Court is expected this month to make a major ruling on affirmative action. To understand the case, we sat down with Kenny Xu, an insider in the lawsuit and president of Color Us United. He is the author of “An Inconvenient Minority” and the upcoming book “School of Woke.”
We also discuss his recent investigations into the dumbing down of academic standards, the protection of sexual predators if they espouse diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) ideology, and the spread of DEI ideology in medical schools.
“Medical schools across America are basically advocating that you stop abiding by the Hippocratic Oath and that you start administering preferential care,” Xu says.
Interview trailer:
Watch the full interview: https://www.theepochtimes.com/david-stockman-debt-default-the-doomsday-budget-machine-and-failed-fiscal-restraint-explained_5311019.html
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Jan Jekielek. Kenny Xu, great to have you back on American Thought Leaders.
Kenny Xu: Thanks for having me.
Mr. Jekielek: Kenny, you’ve played a very significant role in the removal of DEI [Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion] requirements from the University of North Carolina school system, which actually comprises 17 universities. Please tell me about it.
Mr. Xu: I’m president of Color Us United, and we are a group dedicated to a race-blind, meritocratic America. What the University of North Carolina has been doing, and really medical schools all across the nation, is compromising meritocratic ideals in the name of what they call diversity, equity and inclusion. My organization learned about what the University of North Carolina was doing, requiring diversity, equity and inclusion statements for medical faculty to be promoted.
You had to sign on saying, “I’m going to commit to these woke principles,” if you wanted to be promoted as a doctor. They were also teaching unconscious bias to their medical students. If you’re learning how to be a doctor, you should be learning how to treat people based on biological facts, not based on critical race theory.
Finally, they were doing things like racial preferences in admissions, which I’ve extensively covered in my previous talk with you and in my book, An Inconvenient Minority. They were having racial preferences. If you were a black or Latino medical student, you would have a better chance of getting in than if you’re a white or Asian student. It shouldn’t be about that. Ultimately, it should be about if you are the best qualified doctor.
Color Us United launched a campaign to fight against these diversity standards in medicine. On February 23, 2023, the board of governors voted to ban diversity, equity and inclusion statements from promotion and tenure of faculty. It’s a small win towards our larger goal of having the dean of the medical school renounce DEI entirely, but it’s a welcome one.
Mr. Jekielek: I imagine they didn’t just do this immediately.
Mr. Xu: They didn’t. What happened was there are a group of trustees at the University of North Carolina that are very supportive of our colorblind meritocratic ideals. They have been interested in fighting wokeness within the university. As you can see, it’s encroaching upon territory where it should not, like medical schools and the practice of medicine. If you’re a patient, do you want the most qualified doctor, or do you want a doctor of a certain race? The vast majority of Americans want the most qualified doctor. There is already a lot of concern at the university.
But the dean, Wesley Burks, released a video in 2020 advocating for a plan to integrate social justice into the UNC Medical School curriculum. It was a very scary proposition. That means new doctors are going to be educated according to the tenets of social justice and critical race theory, instead of according to the biological practice of medicine.
We exposed this in outlets across America and generated a lot of attention. We created a petition campaign, which you can still sign at colorusunited.org. On February 23rd, the board of governors took steps to start ridding the university and the medical system of diversity, equity and inclusion principles.