University of North Carolina School of Medicine

The school will, “Require that all members of the admissions committee complete trainings related to the principles of holistic review, selection bias, and the patient care and education goals of the UNC School of Medicine for implementation by the 2021-2022 Admissions Cycle.”

The school's Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion posted its Unconscious Bias Awareness training schedule for 2022-2023. This training session is described as follows: "Explores unintended/implicit bias and introduces foundational concepts that are necessary to additional engagement with DEI-related topics and issues. This workshop will be offered monthly throughout the year, and is strongly recommended to be first training that participants attend."

The school is in the midst of the “Implementation of anti-racist longitudinal education within our pre-clinical and clinical education, not just in the Social Health Science Curriculum.”

The school “convened the Task Force for Integrating Social Justice into the Curriculum” to “Establish clear goals, strategies, action steps, metrics, and outcomes for enhancement of integration of social justice into the medical school curriculum and create recommendations to submit to the Education Committee for consideration.” and “Specify the anti-racism components to the curricular pieces proposed.”

The school will, “Develop curriculum for core education training sessions which includes but is not limited to training on implicit bias, the history of discrimination and racism in the US and their relationship to health and health care, and skills to effectively incorporate issues of discrimination based on race/ethnicity, gender, sex, sexuality, nationality, religion, and socioeconomic status into teaching.”

According to the College Fix, “professors and other teachers ‘will be assessed regarding their contributions in the domain of social justice and incentivized for such contributions.’” The College Fix also reports, “The new requirement aims to make faculty ‘see work related to social justice or DEI as central to their work as faculty members,’ and their commitment to ‘anti-racism’ would soon be a requirement for advancement through the school.”

An April 2022 revision to a curriculum plan requiring social justice instruction at the School of Medicine retained several of the original plan’s most controversial components, such as mandating that instructors seeking tenure "demonstrate a commitment to 'anti-racism'" and must "explain the difference between sex and gender and how specific organs and cells do not belong to specific genders." This revised plan stems from a late 2020 report by the UNC Task Force to Integrate Social Justice Into the Curriculum, which recommended 42 changes.

The school is in the midst of the, “Institution – by UNC SOM Administration – of MANDATORY longitudinal racial bias training for all clinical preclinical instructors, faculty, and staff (including those at branch campuses).”

The school has implemented "revised guidelines for appointment, reappointment, and promotion of faculty that include diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) training as well as making a 'positive contribution to DEI efforts,'" according to the Heartland Daily News. Heartland Daily News also reports, "The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine policy change, in effect since May 2021, means the staff has to endure subjective indoctrination in DEI and also materially demonstrate acceptance of DEI doctrine through active participation in the propagation of the doctrine, such as materials provided to students."

Applicants for a faculty position in the Department of Genetics and Psychiatry must submit a statement that describes their “track record of engagement and activities related to diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as a vision of how their work at UNC will continue to support this mission.”

The school said, “Medical students trained and served as EMTs to assist medics at protests. Students also collected donated supplies (masks, water, hand sanitizer, milk of magnesia, etc.).”

The “SNMA, LMSA, MSPA have matched individuals’ donations to a total of $500 donated to BLM, racial justice organizations, mutual aid funds, Black businesses and bailout funds across North Carolina.”

The school said, “Paul A. Godley Art of Medicine Fellowship awards $2,500 to two second-year medical students, in good academic standing, interested in working to ensure the curriculum and culture at UNC SOM is not only inclusive, but explicitly anti-racist. Interested students should also have a passion for working with social justice and the arts.”

The Office of Scholastic Enrichment and Equity at UNC School of Medicine "provides underrepresented students with direct academic, social, and professional support and development." The Office offers "programs and initiatives specifically targeted toward minorities and underrepresented students who are interested in health and allied health professions."

The Lawrence Zollicoffer Community Health Fellowship (through the school's Office of DEI) encourages medical students, "especially underrepresented minority students, to experience community medicine and to learn about the health issues related to minority and medically underserved communities." (The application deadline for this program was on February 6, 2023.)

The school hosted “A New Approach for Anti-Racism in Medical Education 4 part series,” where participants engaged “with scholars of narrative medicine and grapple with ideas of anti-racism, social justice, and interprofessionalism followed by a narrative medicine self-reflective workshop” and were equipped with “tools for applying narrative medicine to their current clinical practice and teaching, with a specific focus on furthering socially just, anti-racist medical education.”

The school held a “Race, Racism, and Racial Equity (R3) Symposium” and the “Annual Minority Health Conference is Body & Soul: The Past, Present, and Future of Health Activism.”

The school will, “Provide/develop workshops by content experts for phase leadership and departments on how to incorporate outlined core concepts of anti-racism, with a plan for ongoing use.” It will also, “Develop and start relationship-based training for faculty and students on team-work, conflict resolution and inclusivity including evidence-based concepts of the relationship between belonging, trust, wellness and anti-racist curricula.”

The school re-started Project EMBRACE, the acronym for “Ending Medical Bias and Racism by Advocating for Change and Equity.”

The Department of Medicine offers resources such as “Racism is a Public Health Crisis: Now that We See, What Do We Do?”

The school said, “The Castillo Scholars program was designed to address the racial and gender disparities present in many medical specialties. The Castillo Scholars program seeks to provide educational, research, and mentorship opportunities for current minority medical students who have an interest in one of these specialties.”

The Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion offers “DEI Trainings/DEI Certificate Program,” which aim “to foster an inclusive workplace environment. The program’s curriculum offers workshops and trainings designed to broaden awareness about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion topics among the SOM faculty/staff and deepen engagement with and between individuals in the SOM at all levels – from patients to leadership. The workshops offered accepted as part of the certificate program address a broad array of DEI topics, including those related to race and ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation, culture and religion, socioeconomic status, and more.”

The Center for Health Equity Research offers “Equity Resources,” such as the 1619 podcast, Ibram X. Kendi’s “How to Be an Antiracist,” and Robin DiAngelo’s “White Fragility.”

The school hosted a “Racial Justice Workshop” on “structural racism in the United States. The workshop explores the history of race as a social construct and the effects of racism on our education and health care systems. It also engages participants in a discussion of how to combat structural racism within the School of Medicine.”

The Internal Medicine Residency Program held the “EMBRACE: ‘Ending Medical Bias and Racism by Advocating for Change and Equity’” conference, which covered topics such as “Terminology and Implicit Bias” and “Health Disparities: A Case for Structural Racism.”

On May 11, 2023, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) published a letter from UNC Senior University Counsel "concerning proposed recommendations from the UNC Chapel Hill School of Medicine, Department of Health Sciences, Task Force to Integrate Social Justice into the Department of Health Sciences Curricula ('Task Force')." The letter states that "...the recommendations have not been operationalized and the Task Force has concluded its work" and that "There is no plan to implement the Task Force’s recommendations now or in the future."

On June 6, 2023, the school's Center for Health Equity Research held an event titled "Accountability for Cancer Care through Undoing Racism and Equity (ACCURE): A Community-Academic Partnership Leading to Treatment Equity and Improved Care for All."

On February 8, 2023, the school's Center for Health Equity Research held an event titled "Confronting Racism Denial: Naming Racism and Moving to Action." The event featured speaker Camara Phyllis Jones, M.D., MPH, Ph.D., whose work "focuses on naming, measuring, and addressing the impacts of racism on the health and well-being of our nation and the world."

In August 2020, the school posted an article on Facebook about a new faculty member: "'To me, an anti-racist health system is one in which our policies are serving the population that we’re suppose to serve,' said Dr. Crystal Wiley Cené, the new Executive Director for Health Equity at UNC Health. Read more in this The News & Observer story."

In November 2020, the school posted on Facebook: "'We are focused on decreasing health disparities and increasing health equity, and that starts with moving forward with a framework for training our students, faculty and staff and infusing social justice into all aspects of the School of Medicine experience,' says Nate Thomas, PhD, Vice Dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at the UNC School of Medicine.

According to Twitter, the school hosted the following seminar: "Excited to be presenting our work on narrative medicine and anti-racism at the @GoldFdtn “Humanism and Healing: Structural Racism and its Impact on Medicine” conference tonight! Thank you @weil_amy for your mentorship and @UNC_SOM @uncmed2024 @NarrativeMed #Humanism2021 #medhum"

On June 3rd, 2020, the School of Medicine held a town hall with over 1000 participants to address the killings and racial injustices that affected the Black community. The DEI Path Forward, SOM's plan to address these issues, was laid out during the town hall by Dr. Nathan Thomas, Vice Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.