Several scholarships for Black medical students are no longer being doled out following President Donald Trump’s executive order on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), the Washington Post reports.
The Post report pointed to the University of Cincinnati, where multiple scholarships established by Black doctors for Black students have come to a halt.
“This is just a setback, and it’s going to take a concerted effort to reverse it,” Clyde Henderson, a retired orthopedic surgeon in Cincinnati, said. “But we can’t just give up, we don’t have that choice.”
The scholarships were set up to support Black medical students in Cincinnati, where there are fewer than 100 Black or Latino doctors, according to a 2020 report from the Doctors Foundation. That number amounts to less than 5 percent of physicians in the region, while Black residents make up 40 percent of Cincinnati’s population.
“Disparities exist at nearly every part of the health care system, and the data shows that Black folks do better when they’re taken care of by folks who look like us, so it would be immoral for us not to address the shortage,” Henderson said.
Trump’s executive order banning DEI in the federal government has put a spotlight on the scholarships for Black students at the University of Cincinnati. Critics suggest the scholarships should be open to more than just the Black student population. The University of Cincinnati is also one of 45 colleges under investigation by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights for its DEI policies.
More pressure to halt the scholarships came after Ohio Governor Mike DeWine (R) signed an overhaul of the state’s higher education system, banning DEI training and calling for the end of race-based scholarships.
Several doctors, including Henderson, are fighting to protect their endowments and hoping the college will back their efforts amid the political climate.
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