LIVE: Reps. Murphy and Others Hold Press Conference on Bill to Ban DEI in Medical School

who else who else so I think um Dr Le Dr in the middle yeah so the order will be um I will speak Dr Dr gold he'll speak Dr winstrip then uh Dr Lee Miller Meeks if she gets here U then Congressman thank you so much Congressman Owens and then Kenny you will back clean up all right said she'd be a few minutes late so yall want to um balance some over on the other side too so glad that she's here she she'll be here all right you guys can come up here just kind of like an atrium the sides we ready uh good afternoon everyone thanks for coming out on a cold but uh sunny day it's great to be here um today today I would like us to uh thank my colleagues and all those especially in the group Do no harm and Dr Stanley goar with whom uh we would not have made any significant progress in stopping the discriminatory acts and activist curricula that are now occurring in medical school these days I come here today as a member of Congress but TR even more importantly I come here today as a surgeon of nearly 35 years someone who has devoted his entire life both here as well as abroad and taking care of patient patients of a large minority of individuals who do not look like me Physicians have always been held in a position of the highest trust patient trust their doctors with their lives medical schools are then charged with educating and training their doctors to be the most competent and excellent in their fields in the past students were admitted based upon Merit excellence and aptitude sadly enough those days are changing Dei the so-called diversity Equity inclusion theology is sewing mistrust in the field in the field where trust is so reli Reliant and so when it comes down to Patient Care Dei can even lead to harmful if not deadly consequences guys this is medical school it is not art school it is not English school it is medical school as Dr Ben Carson whom you all know the black neurosurgeon said about medical school putting putting aside Merit instead of emphas izing qualities like race sex religion and all others by putting aside Merit we hear only only that can endlessly cost people their lives when in medical school many years ago I took the hypocritic oath premium non noer first Do no harm I was able to take care of I was taught to take care of any patient regardless of their race ability to pay their religion or their Creed I was taught to do the same with my colleagues to treat them with respect collegiality sadly as is eviden and by the handouts that you all were given those days are changing close to 40 years ago when I was in college I worked my butt off I was awarded the pre Sandy black premedical award as the highest premedical student at Davidson College now because of my race my gender and maybe even my religion my odds of getting into Medical School are now greatly diminished prescription pads and scales are now being weaponized in some places students are across this nation are forced to sign a Dei fty pledge reminiscent of those days in 1930s Germany as well as Russia what would barttin Luther King say today in his great quote I have a dream that one day my four little children will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of that character that content is what we call Merit what has happened to that dream today the educate act will cut off Federal funding to medical schools that Force students or faculty to adopt certain beliefs discriminate based on race or ethnicity or have diversity equity and inclusion offices or any functional equivalent the bill would also require accreditation agencies to check that their standards don't push these practices while still allowing instruction about health issues tied to race or collecting data for statistics it's my honor today to introduce Dr Stanley gold farb Dr go farb is the chairman of Do no harm he's had a long career in academic medicine as a professor of medicine at Pennsylvania pennil state excuse me Pennsylvania State School of Medicine he has published over a hundred scholarly articles in peer-reviewed medical journals such as the New England Journal of Medicine and the journal of clinical investigation Dr Goldfarb helped found Do no harm after his publication of the book take two aspirin and call me by my pronoun a call to action to eliminate all discriminat discriminatory practices in healthcare with that I'd like to introduce my friend and my colleague Dr goldar thank [Applause] you well thank you very much Congressman Murphy for your leadership and and and your vision about this issue as he as he said my name is Stanley gar I'm a board certified nefrologist former associate dean of curriculum at University of Pennsylvania's Pearlman school of medicine and chair of of Do no harm my message today is simple Dei is dangerous everywhere but it's most dangerous in medical school I've had a front row seat to the corruption of medical education precious classroom and clinical time is now devoted to such issues as climate change homelessness policing and other social issues that doctors cannot change the ideologues behind this Trend don't want a doctor they want lobbyists in white coats the association of American medical colleges which effectively controls medical education now forces medical schools to teach intersectionality oppression colonization and white supremacy among other core Dei topics one medical student recently told my organization I've learned more about pronouns than I have about kidney disease and that patient and and and patients should be terrified about this kind of um miseducation medical schools routin routinely demand that faculty and staff sign Dei loyalty Oaths this is the essence of compelled speech medical schools are lowering admission standards in the name of diversity to some have abandoned requiring the MCAT for all applicants even though the MCAT the achievement test for medical school is the best predictor of a student's ability to become a doctor and and medical schools openly discriminate by race our organization has found numerous medical scholarships and fellowships that bar white and Asian students from applying Nationwide schools are even dividing students into race-based classes and groups medical students deserve better most of all patients deserve better they need doctors who will treat their illnesses and cure their diseases not discriminate by race and advocate for divisive political demands d puts Americans lives at risk the best way to save lives is to get DEA Dei out of medicine now the educate Bill sponsored by Congressman Murphy is a great step forward in treating and eventually curing the ills of medical education in this nation thank you very much thank you Dr gold for for your leadership next I would like to introduce one of my dearest friends here in Congress Dr Brad winst he's uh serves the people of H's second congressional district he brings uh experience both both forward as a physician Army Reserve officer in Iraq he's a podiatric surgeon from Cincinnati and I uh would like to introduce him for his comments thank you thank you Dr Murphy and thank you all for for being here today you know as Physicians and as lawmakers uh we have a responsibility to have oversight on the Ed education in the United States of America at at all levels and in this case when we talk about medicine that that includes the medical school and residency training see so much of that is funded by Congress by taxpayer dollars so we have a responsibility here and we are all for a path for opportunity for people that traditionally with their backgrounds their family background may not have an opportunity or think they don't have an opportunity to achieve a lot to go into medicine talk to Dr Ben Carson about that sometime and we we can instill that in in a young age for me I knew in second grade that I wanted to be a physician and I knew that it was going to be an effort it was going to take sacrifice it was going to take work that it wasn't just going to be given to me that I had to earn it and so I wanted to make that's why I'm for school choice because I want people at a young age to have an opportunity to go to a school that will help them gear them up to accomplish their dreams but you know 60 years ago and for the last 60 years we worked very hard Dr Murphy referenced Dr Martin Luther King we worked very hard to make sure that in this country there was equal opportunity and that we were against discrimination and it was not to be legal you know I looked up the word Equity quality of being fair or impartial but the idea of being ruled in or in some cases ruled out based on attributes that have nothing to do with trying to create someone who can be a caring compassionate and and competent caregiver is not partial impartial it is partial it is not fair it is unfair in fact it is blatant discrimination you know I speak from the heart here today I practiced in private practice large Orthopedic Group for 27 years i s 25 years in military medicine with a year in Iraq I had a lot of patients that didn't look like me but there was trust I had a lot of doctors refer to me that didn't look like me I had a lot of doctors that I referred to that didn't look like me we had strong doctor patient relationship no matter what we looked like we had strong doctor to doctor relationship no matter what we looked like there was trust because we knew that everyone there had adhered to some high standards standards that had to be met now we want people to take an oath Against Racism are we going to take an oath against domestic violence or are we going to take an oath against hatred why don't we just stick with what we have and that is an oath to do no no harm and the Very idea that you love your neighbor as yourself and you're going to do unto others as you would have done unto you we have a shortage in medicine today I encourage all people to want to participate in a merit-based system that can give us the best patient outcomes medicine is a noble profession it requires sacrifice leading to the reward of being able to care for others and being usted usted by patients to do so and it must be earned and not given thank you thank you Dr winstrip now I have the honor of introducing uh Dr TB Lee She's the founding member of free black thought and has contributed to the design implementation of numerous educational professional development programs Dr Lee prepares K through2 and higher education faculty to work with diverse communities by focusing using on a better understanding of ideology in practice and the pedagog the pedagogical and curricular implications of race gender and other ideologies Dr Lee thank you so much for joining us thank you my name is Dr tabia Lee I'm a senior fellow for Do no harm medicine a founding member of free black thought and the director for the Coalition for empowered education I come to you today as a lifelong educator and former Dei faculty director in the California community college system who has up close and personal experience with toxic critical social justice Dei overtaking institutions of learning I'm thankful to Dr Murphy in his work on the educate act which is not a and I and I want to point out um that I support this act I'm neither a Republican or a Democrat but I have the good sense to know that the idea that present and future discrimination is a remedy for past discrimination is not only contrary to American law and the Constitution but it's dangerously anti-American at its core thank you to representatives winstrup and Murphy for having the moral courage and Clarity to help bring our medical schools back from the brink no matter what side of the aisle you sit on something we can all rally around is that it's important for us to educate not indoctrinate and that means getting race-based mandates out and and critical social justice Dei practices out of our educational institutions and removing Federal funding for those who continue the harmful and illegal practices that are wrought in these critical social justice ideologies you don't have to be a Republican or a Democrat to oppose discrimination of all kinds including anti-white discrimination that is fermented by critical social justice ideologies toxic critical social justice Dei has no place in medical education we need medical professionals who meet the highest standards of competent care and professional competency not for how well they signal Fidelity to a toxic Dei policy and ideology for those of us on both sides or no sides of the aisle who love America and want to see a return to education instead of indoctrination the educate Act is a breath of fresh air and a hopeful promise to restore learning and teaching as a focal point instead of partisan political activism division discrimination and anti-American critical social justice Dei thank you for joining in this effort and for supporting the educate act thank you thank you so much Dr Lee uh next I'd like to introduce uh another good friend Dr Marinette Miller Meeks uh Dr Miller Meeks is an opthalmologist she's on the house committee on Energy and Commerce as well as the health subcommittee um on Veterans Affairs uh thank you all Dr Meeks uh thank you all for joining us and uh thank you both Dr Murphy and Dr winstrip for IND introducing this important reg legislation rightly called the educate act for too long we have watched as radicals inside the institutions of Higher Learning have pushed diversity equity and inclusion ideals and other harmful agendas over quality education let me just take a brief moment and I'm going to give you my background I'm the fourth of eight children my dad was career Air Force enlisted my mom had a GED both my parents worked my entire life I thought as a young young lady because I was good in science and math and I loved school which was a refuge for me that I would go into education and at 15 I suffered severe burns from a kitchen fire and during that very long and painful hospitalization decided I wanted to become a physician not because of the physician but because of the physical therapist who treated us I came home told my parents this so we were very humble circumstances no one in my family had ever gone to college and they didn't see how a poor young lady with no one in the family ever having gone to college was going to be able to do it I left home at 16 I got a job I enlisted in the Army at age 18 decided if I went into nursing I'd be able to work myself to medical school and that is exactly what I did I worked got a degree in nursing I worked at night got a master's in education and ultimately went into Medical School graduating at the top of my class despite being the last person to enter into my class that was all based on Merit and we are now talking about policies that will take away the explosion of knowledge in health care in medicine in research and replace that with thought where a person who would come to my office to see any one of us as providers wouldn't think am I going to be treated fairly do they have the knowledge to treat me to diagnose me or are they going to treat based upon my race or my ethnicity the educate act would prohibit Federal funding from graduate medical schools who direct compel or incentivize students faculty or staff of the medical school to personally recite or U or affirm compelled Dei statements and pledges just for the simple admittance into the school our pledge is to our profession to the medical knowledge and Foundation we have and to our patients let's get back to to training the future medical professionals away from radical policies that despite their names divide and exclude let's make sure that every medical student has the knowledge they need with the vast explosion of research and information in medicine so they can treat any patient that walks into their door regardless of their race their ethnicity their gender or where they are from again I'd like to thank Dr Murphy for his leadership on this critical issue and encourage all all of my colleagues both Republican and Democrat to support this legislation and demand accountability in higher education thank [Applause] you thank you Dr Meeks uh next I'd like to introduce uh representative Burgess Owens everybody knows Burgess good football player I heard um from Utah's fourth congressional district who was one of the first four black a athletes recruited to play football at University of Miami somehow he ended up in the NFL and went there for several years and did a fantastic job he wears a little ring that might say that uh Mr Burgess now serves on the house educational Workforce committee where he is now subcommittee chair of higher education uh Mr Burgess brings a big dream today in following the guiding principles of Faith Family free markets and education I would like you to welcome my dear friend doc Mr uh Mr B great everybody thank you uh first of all this appears I'm the first to speak that's not a physician um but I do have a physician in my family uh my son-in-law is a um emergency emergency uh emergency doctor uh one of the best I met him when he was in residency he worked hard top of his class went on for years and work very hard hours long hours become the best at what he does and now run his own business uh based on di because Chris doesn't look like me he's a different color he might not have the have today di promotes people and policies based on race gender religion and sexual orientation rather than Merit talent and hard work this is not the American dream this divisive force is gripping American universities and now in our medical schools influencing policies and missions with a very corrosive ideology recent studies show that at least 70% of 155 credit uh uh university medical schools provide mandatory or voluntary CRT related cour work for students unlike the courses like organic chemistry and physics this Marxist or aoxy does nothing to teach medical students inner workings of the human body de St has mandates discrimination as it lowers the standards and quality of Physicians and undermines the health care of all patients of all the industries that depends on the promotion of only the best regardless of race creative color the medical profession is a gold standard your life your health your loved ones life their health depends on compassionate capable and talented Physicians bigotry is not embraced in any segment of our society as Americans we disdain it there are results that are very predictable when it comes to the bigot tree called Dei it is not a matter of if but when and how many lives will be lost if we do not eradicate this from our medical system please join us in defending the America uh academic freedom protecting American exception exceptionalism and rejecting this ideology of bigotry and extremist extremist called Dei thank you so [Applause] much thank you representative Owens next I'd like to introduce uh uh Kenny Zoo Kenny was a friend of mine back we share an allma moderate Davidson college and Kenny is was born to or excuse me to Chinese immigrants in Maryland he moved to North Carolina attended Davidson College D Kenny did a great job when he was at Davidson in free speech we really needed it at the college at that time and Kenny started when he graduated color us United which is based in North Carolina color us United advocates for a race blind society and equal treatment of individuals thank you Kenny for joining us today [Applause] thank you representative Murphy Greg and I are both North Carolinian residents so I'd like to start off with an example from North Carolina just two weeks ago Duke Medical School surgeon Dr vesh Raman was caught on video saying that he does not like treating patients from quote the South and that he would rather uh and he said my heart burns my heart is sick when he treats white patients uh as a reminder Dr uh winr here uh Congressman winr said that as a doctor his responsibility is to treat people irrespective of their color gender religion or any background does this sound like somebody who will treat somebody regardless of color religion or background as a reminder Dei is strictly based on the critical race Theory ideology that America is systemically a racist country that white people are racist and in order to combat that we have to be racist against white people and against Southerners and against conservatives as a member of a Southern state and a conservative State the fact that medical schools treat people and leverage people's education to indulge them in critical race Theory based woke philosophy based on Dei really scares me really scares me it really scares our constituents our Southern constituents our white constituents and anybody who calls themselves American should subscribe to the American ideal that we should be treating People based on the content of their character not the color of their skin this educate Act is a great start towards that thank you very much thanks I I think a common theme is we all want our uh our medical schools and and our physicians to be diverse I I believe that strengthens us but when you do it at the expense of Merit when you do it at the expense of Excellence when you add discrimination into the entire process you are destroying what is I believe the most trustworthy profession in all profession so thank you we'll happy to take any questions you can direct them to however you wish I absolutely I think we need to create a bigger pie I don't think we need to eliminate we have a we have a severe doctor shortage right now this is by wrong policies uh that were that were occurred 30 years ago decreased the number of medical schools decrease the number of residencies I am absolutely uh uh we absolutely want as many individuals to regardless of R to apply to medical school work hard become doctors but they can't but students can't believe that they will be able to get into medical schools merely because of identity politics being a physician is hard work it requires sacrifice it requires understanding and uh uh Gathering a great new digesting a great group of knowledge we need those individuals but the class can be bigger we can take everybody can can I add to that I think um it's important that we even start at a young age with educ it's important we start at a young age with education in America you know a friend of mine uh he was the principal at an inner city school where there probably not one child there whose parents went to college my parents didn't go to college uh but I was at a school where it was instilled in you that you can do whatever you think you want to set out to do and and provide that type of an education that's why I'm for school choice but what he did at this school is he started putting up banners of colleges to put it in their heads that yes you can do this this is something that you can accomplish and we don't we don't do that well enough I don't think in in the United States of America today so it's all and it's not just medicine it's whatever you might dream you want to be able to do you don't necessarily grow up thinking you have that opportunity but today today I have had a parent call me and say my son has topm cat scores he's he's done everything well in school he's got a high GPA he want to be a physician he's worried he won't get in because he's white that's what is taking place out there and they're not just making it up it's because they're seeing it happen to their friends as they're going through we can't have this we can't have this and as Dr Murphy said we got to we got to expand the pie we have a Workforce shortage we want we need to get out and make sure anybody at any age knows we just take medicine as example yes you can can I say something yeah please do please do please do I ask 56% are white approximately 20 uh I think 22% are Asian and then it balances out between uh Hispanics and African-Americans 5an so what do you say afrian right now it's not on equal playing field that are trying to position where a disor g African amans that are trying to the answer is simple teaching like everybody else all the other kids have been taught let's not start off with the premise that blacks can not do not have the in intellectual ability to meet the the the high bar I I finished up in University of Miami with a biology and chemistry degree it was almost impossible for people to believe blacks to do that back in the 60s because they thought so little of the black intellect so let's let's let's get rid of this idea that we cannot perform give them the opportunity to to to learn school choice would do that parents will put their kids in the best school so they can go ahead and learn how to read write and think and compete with anybody else in the world we do not think with our skin we think with our brains and our hearts and the ability to to to dream big so we have to get back to that my father-in-law is a phys right so it it shocks me that a man of um that you would say that when you look at the percentage of 5.7% black and brown students are Physicians and so it's disproportion well even have a chance i50 low first scholar y schar every last one of them have the opportunity and potential to be physician but unfortunately they don't have the chance because a lot of times they're turned around just because of the color of theirin it's not that they don't have can I can I answer that what would you say to this then 2017 found out that 75% of black boys state of California cannot read and write you know now now it was because 75% of boy black boys cannot think or because they're not we're not taught that should be the concern if you're not teaching them how to read and write with a younger they're not going to be Physicians Physicians this kind of profession needs to have the very best you don't want to go to to see somebody just because of skin color when you want to be healed you want to to live we need to make sure that we're not lowering the bar because we have such a low uh uh low thought process of black Americans raise the bar that everybody can get there in let everybody have the opportunity to grow and think and succeed I hear what you're saying by the way by the way when I grew up in Tallahassee uh segregated Community my first exposure of black white Americans were 16 years old I had Physicians black Physicians everywhere everywhere I know a lot of them okay so so the difference is this the difference the difference is this when I was growing up we also led the country in growth middle class men M TR from college men committed to marriage percentage of entrepreneurs we were succeeding as a society because we believed in ourselves we have people around us once we start believing in our kids they will start failing so let's let's get this education thing taken care of and you'll find that 5% will go to 50% or whatever it might be anybody wants to be there was that I said I run a preparatory program so our program is preparing these young scholars to be whatever they want to be great but the issue is it's providing OPP can I can I say this I have I have what we're saying we're saying the same thing and I have um we've all said today my son-in-law is a physician the last thing that anybody cares about when he was going through the process is what his skin color was is what his grades were how how much compassion he had how much can get through the process and become the best of of what he was everybody should have the same opportunity so let's get away from the skin color deal okay yes sir sorry yes to all of those and I will say sometimes you know on the other side of the aisle than than I am because of the uh the pressure that excuse me is exerted by the uh the other side there they're withheld a little bit from speaking their comments but I will tell you I spoke with the um now ranking member of an a committee and I told him we were doing this and he was 100% agreeing with me Democrat Democrat member you know guys if just imagine you are the patient imagine you are the patient and you're looking up and tomorrow you're having having your chest cut open CU you're going to have bypass who do you want as your doctor someone who is skillful or someone who got into medical school because of identity politics we want to broaden the pie we want physi the physician population to mirror what we have in the country but we cannot sacrifice Merit we cannot sacrifice quality to do such support I would hope so I would love so because you know I think if you ask everybody and you did this in an anonymous manner there would be overwhelming support for this we're not talking about art school we're not talking about English school we're talking for God's sakes we're talking about medical school where people's lives are at risk like what like what well I I'd love to say diversity we're we are diversifying naturally in this country we're a melting pop that's occurring naturally but when especially on college campuses diversity means everything except diversity in opinion I found that back in my Al Moder we're talking about Free Speech we talk about inclusion now inclusion is wonderful we want everybody to join but all of a sudden we're now excluding in the effort to include yeah I'd love to have a full discussion on this and sometimes you have to take a shot across the bow to bring the argument up yeah it's a hard argument it's a hard discussion to take but guys again we're talking about people's lives here people's lives and imagine if it was your child your mother your wife your spouse think about that what do you want from your physician you want Excellence okay guys thank you very much for coming out today thank [Applause] you thank you so much to come anytime good job I read about you I have two kids in medical school I'm also a physician and I almost contacted you because I've been working on Dei in Indiana medic sure saying preferences all the through the curricula and they L your tuition oh great great nice to see you e