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The American Medical Association's (AMA) new equity plan commits to utilizing critical race theory (CRT) in a variety of ways and criticizes the idea that people of different backgrounds should be treated the same.
Released earlier this week, the plan is designed to "Embed Racial Justice and Advance Health Equity" in the organization, which is the nation's largest professional association of physicians.
Much of the 86-page document includes buzzwords typically found in other organization's "equity" plans but is unique in explicitly acknowledging its use of CRT. For example, AMA says its research methods will be "informed by social epidemiology and critical race theory, recognizing the deep-rooted structural and social drivers of health."
In another section on "center[ing]" historically marginalized voices, it reads: "We must adopt collaborative and participatory approaches and ensure that we use the theories (intersectionality, critical race theory, etc.), tools and approaches that allow us to consistently identify, elevate and work with marginalized groups in any spaces."
And while CRT is often hard to define, AMA attempts to do so in its plan. "Critical race theory born out of both legal studies and education scholarship is a framework that centers experiential knowledge, challenges dominant ideology, and mobilizes interdisciplinary action and research in order to uncover inequalities related to race and racism and other intersectional identities and/or experiences," the group says.
Critics of CRT have argued that its injecting divisive, dangerous and often racist concepts into various institutions across the United States.
Moreover, the AMA commits to "[e]xpand medical school and physician education to include equity, anti-racism, structural competency, public health and social sciences, critical race theory and historical basis of disease"
The document follows other programs, including a "land acknowledgement" for indigenous people. It criticizes the concept of treating everyone equally and, like previously reported materials, it disparages the idea of meritocracy.
Although it states "we are all born equal," it adds: "Equality as a process means providing the same amounts and types of resources across populations. Seeking to treat everyone the ‘same’ ignores the historical legacy of disinvestment and deprivation through historical policy and practice of marginalizing and minoritizing communities. It has generated unequal society that traces back prior to the founding of our country."
It adds: "Through systematic oppression and deprivation from genocide, forced removal from land and slavery, Indigenous and Black people have been relegated to the lowest socioeconomic ranks of this country. The ongoing xenophobic treatment of undocumented Brown people and immigrants is another example.
"Thus, intergenerational wealth has mainly benefited and exists for white families. The ‘equality’ framework, as applied, also fails individual patients and communities. For example, high-quality and safe care for a person with a disability does not translate to 'equal' care. A person with low vision receiving the ‘same’ care might receive documents that are illegible, depriving them of the ability to safely consent to and participate in their own treatment. Equality fails when applied to other domains, including language, health literacy and transgender health."
The document comes as so-called "anti-racism" has made its way into public health advocacy. Fox News previously reported on New York City's chief medical officer calling for racial preferences for Black and "Latinx" patients in order to address structural inequities.
Drs. Michelle Morse and Bram Wispelwey, who work at a teaching hospital for Harvard University, penned an op-ed suggesting that colorblind practices were ineffective. It also called for preferential admissions for Black and "Latinx" heart failure patients.
"After more than five decades of colorblind law ... the stubborn persistence of racial inequities – both in health care and across society at large – gives the lie to the effectiveness of colorblind policies," the doctors wrote.
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The state of Vermont has also come under fire for granting vaccine eligibility to certain groups while excluding people who identify as White.
It's unclear how exactly AMA's specific proposal will play out, but it touts its vision as a way to enhance the lives of individuals in various communities.
"We envision a nation in which all people live in thriving communities where resources work well; systems are equitable and create no harm nor exacerbate existing harms; where everyone has the power, conditions, resources and opportunities to achieve optimal health; and all physicians are equipped with the consciousness, tools and resources to confront inequities and dismantle white supremacy, racism, and other forms of exclusion and structured oppression, as well as embed racial justice and advance equity within and across all aspects of health systems," the document states.
Chris Rufo, who has helped lead opposition to CRT, told Fox News that the AMA is playing with fire.
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"Critical race theory is a destructive ideology that has no place in medicine. Critical race theorists argue explicitly that society should discriminate on the basis of race," he said.
"In the past year, we have seen medical treatment denied to members of particular racial groups, which is a flagrant violation of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The AMA is playing with fire: if they adopt critical race theory as a guiding framework, they will elevate the principles of neoracism into medical policy."
The AMA did not immediately respond to Fox News' request for comment.
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