The University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine is broadening their Penn Access Summer Scholars (PASS) program, which is designed to “increase student diversity in medicine,” by no longer requiring students that qualify for the program to take the MCAT when applying to medical school. The program states that only “students from racial and ethnic minority groups, those who identify as LGBTQ+, and first-generation and low-income students,” are eligible.

This is what we’ve come to. In an attempt to correct the discrimination of the past, colleges are now overcompensating by addressing race, sex, sexual orientation, and income over a student’s actual merit. Remember it was the words of the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that asked for a world that judges people by the content of the character, not the color of their skin. How are actions like this any different?

UPENN is not the only university that has established programs like that. A large percentage of college campuses across the country have created JEI (justice, equity, and inclusive) initiatives or have programs that prioritize non-white students.

Take Creighton University as another example. On their website, they explain their Physicians Assistant program and the five goals they aim to achieve. You would expect their number one goal to be to “foster the personal and professional development of students as medical providers.” No. That is goal number three. For them, goal number one is to “increase the diversity of the PA workforce by recruiting, retaining, and graduating students from diverse backgrounds.”

While these colleges may think they are helping society and “fighting racism,” they are actually making the problem worse. It is an obvious fact that colleges should prioritize a student’s academic ability and potential, especially for medical programs.

How do you expect people will act when they know that individuals were accepted into programs or jobs primarily because of their physical characteristics? If we normalize a system like this, we will create more distrust aimed towards medical experts because people will doubt their qualifications.

Do colleges care more about virtue signaling or patient care?