(The Lion) — A new bill proposed by two U.S. representatives who are also physicians would eliminate federal funding for medical schools that implement diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) ideology.

Reps. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, and Greg Murphy, R-North Carolina, introduced the EDUCATE Act at a press conference Tuesday.

The bill would eliminate federal funding for schools that force students or faculty to adopt specific beliefs, discriminate based on race or ethnicity, or have DEI offices. It would also require accreditation agencies to check that the schools’ standards do not push DEI practices.

“In the past, [medical] students were admitted based upon merit, excellence and aptitude. Sadly enough, those days are changing,” Murphy said. “DEI, the so called diversity, equity, inclusion theology, is sowing mistrust in the field – in the field, where trust is so reliant. And so, when it comes down to patient care, DEI can even lead to harmful if not deadly consequences.”

Critics of DEI at medical schools warn that instruction in the ideology is taking up precious time that should be used to study medicine to help treat patients.

Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, of the anti-DEI physicians group Do No Harm, told reporters that one medical student he heard from learned more about pronouns in medical school than about kidney disease.

“Patients should be terrified about this kind of education,” said Goldfarb.

To highlight the toxicity of DEI In the medical profession, participants pointed to recent comments by Duke surgical resident, Dr. Vignesh Raman.

During a DEI lecture, Raman reportedly said his “heart sank” when he had to treat white people, and he later posted online that he didn’t want to “collaborate with white men.”

Progressive ideology that advocates “for divisive political demands” don’t educate doctors, but instead have created “lobbyists in white coats,” said Goldfarb.

By eliminating DEI, “the EDUCATE Act, sponsored by Congressman Murphy, is a great step forward in treating and eventually curing the ills of medical education in this nation,” said Goldfarb.

The bill’s co-sponsor, Wenstrup, told reporters that when he practiced medicine privately and in the military, he had many “patients who didn’t look like” him, but they had “trust.”

“We had a strong doctor-patient relationship no matter what we looked like. We had strong doctor-to-doctor relationship no matter what we looked like,” but, today, DEI threatens to undermine that trust, he said.

One former DEI professional echoed those sentiments during the press conference.

Dr. Tabia. Lee was previously a DEI faculty director in the California Community College system, but was terminated from De Anza Community College because she wasn’t the “right kind of black person,” according to her account of the firing reported by Newsweek.

Lee said that she is neither Republican nor Democrat, but has “the good sense to know that the idea that present and future discrimination [as found in DEI] as a remedy for past discrimination is not only contrary to American law and the Constitution, but it’s dangerously anti-American at its core.”

Lee filed a 53-page lawsuit against De Anza Community College claiming the school fired her because of their “ideological opposition” to her anti-discrimination views.

“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 critical social justice, DEI practices out of our educational institutions,” Lee told reporters.

Rep. Burgess Owens, R-Utah, who also supports the EDUCATE Act, said that recent studies show that 70% of the 155 accredited university medical schools provide mandatory or voluntary Critical Race Theory-related coursework for students.

Owens, in responding to a reporter’s concern that blacks are under-represented in the medical profession, said that fixing education before kids reach college is the key to having more black doctors.

Owens cited a 2017 study that found 75% of black boys can’t read and write in Los Angeles. He said that the numbers of black physicians can increase if schools start teaching black kids to the same standards that others are taught.

“If you’re not teaching how to read and write when they are younger, they’re not going to provision as physicians” later, said Owens.