Image CreditBreccan F. Thies / The Federalist
A major medical school accreditor responsible for all graduate-level medical programs announced it would suspend some of its “diversity” requirements, roughly two weeks after President Donald Trump signed an executive order cracking down on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) requirements among accreditors.
The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) explained that it would be pausing some “diversity” requirements over “concerns” from “multiple constituents in several states” that they might violate state or federal law.
“The ACGME has heard significant concerns from multiple constituents in several states and from federal Sponsoring Institutions about their ability to comply with some of the ACGME requirements addressing diversity in light of state or federal laws,” president and CEO Debra F. Weinstein said in a press release. Citing some specific requirements, Weinstein said they would stop enforcement due to legal “uncertainty” until the group has a chance to review them at a June 2025 meeting.
As Dr. Travis Morrell, a senior fellow at Do No Harm, pointed out, “This nationwide accreditor has a monopoly on physicians’ postgraduate education, and was making programs choose trainees, supervising teachers (attendings), and even non-clinician staff based on race (and other non-character, non-expertise markers).”
Some of ACGME’s mandates required that institutions with medical education programs maintain a “workforce of residents/fellows, faculty members, senior administrative staff members, and other relevant members of its GME community.” ACGME suspended similar policy for residency programs.
“ACGME has finally cracked after three months of doubling-down on its commitment to radical identity politics. ACGME’s suspension of absurd diversity rules is an encouraging first step but now it must permanently eliminate these requirements — along with the equity in education rule it still enforces,” Morrell said. “The sudden change of tune is a direct result of President Trump’s historic executive order dismantling accreditors’ ability to impose DEI requirements on schools. By prioritizing expertise over politics, we will slowly but surely restore a culture of meritocracy to American medical institutions.”
Trump’s order, titled Reforming Accreditation to Strengthen Higher Education, targets all accreditors of institutions of higher education for their constant push of DEI as a factor to receive accreditation.
ACGME was directly mentioned in the order, which states, “The Secretary of Education shall, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, hold accountable, including through denial, monitoring, suspension, or termination of accreditation recognition, accreditors who fail to meet the applicable recognition criteria or otherwise violate Federal law, including by requiring institutions seeking accreditation to engage in unlawful discrimination in accreditation-related activity under the guise of ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ initiatives.”
As The Federalist reported, accreditors are not normally part of the discussion around education, but they wield an outsized amount of power because they set standards for schools to receive federal financial aid, in addition to standards for admissions, faculty quality, and programming.
They almost never hold schools accountable and are much more notable for encouraging the kinds of far-left moves academia already desire to pursue.
Breccan F. Thies is a correspondent for The Federalist. He previously covered education and culture issues for the Washington Examiner and Breitbart News. He holds a degree from the University of Virginia and is a 2022 Claremont Institute Publius Fellow. You can follow him on X: @BreccanFThies.
