The National Medical Association “promotes the collective interests of physicians and patients of African descent.” Its opposition to the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI) suggests that high among those interests is the preservation of racial preferences for minority physicians.
The National Medical Association opposes this measure as a threat to the crucial gains made in educational and professional opportunities available to minorities and women. It will close doors that are now open for those who are working to improve their lot.
This press release does not specify what “doors will be closed” or how treating everyone without regard to race will close them.
The press release tries to use physician shortage as a rationale for preferential treatment.
Proposition 2 would threaten programs designed and used to address inadequate access to health care, especially in minority communities. The NMA is working to increase the number of all medical school graduates, especially minorities who tend to practice medicine in underserved minority communities. All Americans deserve better health and access to care, and Proposition 2 will have a negative impact on it.
If ever there were a situation where racial preferences are not “narrowly tailored” to achieve some worthy goal, giving scarce medical school slots to minorities on the theory that “minorities … tend to practice medicine in underserved minority communities” is clearly one.
First, students admitted with lower qualifications also “tend” to graduate, if they do, with lower credentials. Why should less qualified doctors be foist off on minority communities? Second, you get what you pay for: if what you want is more physicians practicing in “underserved” communities, provide inducements for that practice — grants, waivers of loan repayments, extra-low interest loans, whatever to students who will promise to spend a certain amount of time in designated communities. At the very least, any preferentially admitted minority applicant admitted because “minorities tend” to practice in such areas should be required, in exchange for the preference, to do so.
