As the Trump administration expands its battle to stamp out Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion ideology by targeting medical schools and hospitals, recent interactions with medical trainees highlighted just how entrenched this ideology has become in the education of doctors.

I am a medical faculty member at a major Midwestern medical school and am frequently accompanied by medical students and residents during hospital rounds. In recent years, I have noticed that fewer and fewer of them wear the traditional white coat. On that particular day, for example, I happened to be the only one in my team of six wearing one. So I asked them why. The response? Wearing white coats was discouraged by medical educators due to concerns about power inequalities between doctors and patients.

After my initial shock wore off, I realized that this line of thinking was familiar. It came from critical theory, a political school of thought developed by Marxist thinkers in early 20th century Germany. Critical theory views societal interactions – from the individual to group level – entirely through the lens of power dynamics, and when this theory was imported to America’s shores, it morphed into critical race theory and ultimately into DEI.

Applying DEI to the wearing of white coats introduces obvious contradictions and problems. Though medical schools have “white........

© Eurasia Review