DEI infrastructures required for the best science and medicine
Authors: Valerie A Tornini, Robert W Fernandez, Olivia V Goldman, Joanne Suarez
Journal: The Lancet (2024)

Over the last year, efforts in the USA have aimed to defund diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) infrastructures in education and professional organisations, including efforts to defund by state legislatures of Wisconsin, Florida, Texas, and Alabama1Chronicle StaffDEI legislation tracker.https://www.chronicle.com/article/here-are-the-states-where-lawmakers-are-seeking-to-ban-colleges-dei-effortsDate: 2024Date accessed: March 27, 2024Google Scholar and the American Academy of Dermatology.2Buchanan L American Academy of Dermatology upholds diversity policies in face of anti-DEI proposal.https://www.dermatologytimes.com/view/american-academy-of-dermatology-upholds-diversity-policies-in-face-of-anti-dei-proposalDate: 2024Date accessed: April 10, 2024Google Scholar Additionally, these measures also aim to de-legitimise gender, sexuality, religious, African American, sociological, Indigenous, and ethnic studies at public institutions, as these studies inform progress in DEI. Justification varies and can include funding priorities, shifting public resources towards privatisation, fostering division rather than unity, or personal ideologies. Yet, the goal remains the same: defund and disable the knowledge enterprises underpinning DEI. Movements towards undermining DEI and adjacent social sciences should be a reckoning for all scientists and clinicians. Science is the practice of questioning beliefs in the pursuit of truth. In the same way, these empirical fields challenge us to question our practice of science and medicine, to decentre normative identities, and consider the complex ways in which historically marginalised social categories are intertwined in our laboratories or clinics. This research can guide researchers, health-care professionals, and policy makers on how to address outstanding biases in science and medicine; it offers improvements to the current structures that decide who directs scientific and medical work, which problems are addressed, and for whom. Neutrality cannot exist in social systems designed to be stratified. Ignoring or censoring this scholarship will exacerbate science's and medicine's well documented shortcomings.3Roberts D Fatal invention: how science, politics, and big business re-create race in the twenty-first century. The New Press, New York, NY2011Google Scholar, 4Saini A Inferior: how science got women wrong—and the new research that's rewriting the story. Beacon Press, Boston, MA2017Google Scholar, 5Reynolds JM Wieseler C The disability bioethics reader. Routledge, New York, NY2022Crossref Scopus (8) Google Scholar Moreover, if DEI efforts diminish, people from marginalised backgrounds will be even further excluded from educational and training opportunities to participate in and lead the scientific workforce.6National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and MedicineAdvancing antiracism, diversity, equity, and inclusion in STEMM organizations: beyond broadening participation. The National Academies Press, Washington, DC2023Google Scholar Poor representation in science and medicine harms all communities, including through social, health, policy, and economic structures. DEI scholarship, and the knowledge that underlies it, makes science better for everyone. Researchers, health-care providers, policy makers, and institutions need to acknowledge the contribution of social sciences to the physical and life sciences in practice and policy, to avoid removing the opportunity to become better thinkers, mentors, healers, and members of a more just society. VAT acknowledges Hannah L Landecker (Department of Sociology and Institute for Society and Genetics, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA) for critical feedback on this Correspondence. VAT reports funding from the US National Institutes of Health (K99HD105001). RWF reports funding from the Simons Foundation (855199); and is the Executive Director of Cientifico Latino. OVG reports fellowships from the Kavli Neural Systems Institute and the US National Science Foundation, oustide of the submitted work; and is the Secretary of Cientifico Latino. JS is the founder and Executive Director of Prospera Institute. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the US National Institutes of Health or any funding sources.