“If the standards for passing medical exams and becoming a doctor or especially something like a surgeon, if the standards are lowered, then the probability that the surgeon will make a mistake is higher,” Mr. Musk said. “They’re making mistakes in their exam. They may make mistakes with people, and that may result in people dying.”
The tech billionaire made the argument during the show with former CNN host Don Lemon as the pair discussed the issue.
During the interview, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX tried to explain the concept to the former CNN host, but it seemed Mr. Lemon did not get it, saying, “There’s no evidence of that.”
Mr. Musk then provided an example of a surgeon in training who, despite making numerous mistakes during operations, still passed training due to lower standards. He suggested that this lower standard could increase the likelihood of fatal outcomes.
Mr. Lemon argued it was “hypothetical, that doesn’t mean it’s happening.”
“I didn’t say it was happening; I said it will. I said if we lower [the] status, people will die,” Mr. Musk pushed back.
The former CNN anchor asked why Mr. Musk would “put something out there that has not happened.”
“Because I don’t want it to happen,” the X owner insisted.
The interview, posted on several social media platforms on March 18, was supposed to be a part of the former CNN anchor’s original exclusive plans on X. However, Mr. Musk canceled his platform’s partnership with Mr. Lemon shortly after the interview.
DEI Critic
Mr. Musk has long been outspoken against the DEI initiative. During an interview with commentator Ben Shapiro earlier this year at the European Jewish Association Conference in Poland, the owner of X said people should “always be wary of any name that sounds like it could come out of a George Orwell book.”
“Diversity, equity, inclusion, these all sound like nice words. But what it really means is discrimination on the basis of race, sex, and sexual orientation, and it’s against merit,” Mr. Musk said at the time.
During the interview, Mr. Musk noted that the solution to address this DEI problem is for universities to focus on merit. “It doesn’t matter whether you’re a man, [or] woman, what race you are, what beliefs you have. What matters is how good you are at your job or what your skills are,” he said.
‘DEI Is Dangerous Everywhere, but It’s Most Dangerous in Medical Schools’
On March 7, the Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Development held a hearing titled, “Divisive, Excessive, Ineffective: The Real Impact of DEI on College Campuses.”
During the testimony, Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, former associate dean of curriculum at the University of Pennsylvania, Perelman School of Medicine, and chair of the medical nonprofit Do No Harm, raised great concerns about the DEI initiative in medical schools and warned of its potential consequences.
“DEI is dangerous everywhere, but it’s most dangerous in medical schools,” Dr. Goldfarb raised the alarm.
“Americans need to know exactly what’s happening. Your future doctors are learning about divisive politics at the expense of life-saving care. They’re being taught to discriminate by race, not treat patients equally. Ultimately, your future doctor is being trained to be an activist,” he warned. “If we don’t restore medical school to its real mission, Americans will inevitably suffer a diminished quality of health care.”
During the hearing, Dr. Goldfarb accused the Association of American Medical Colleges, which manages medical education, of forcing “medical schools to teach intersectionality, oppression, colonization, and white supremacy among other core DEI topics.”
He cited an example of a medical student who recently told his organization Do No Harm that the student had spent more time learning about pronouns than understanding kidney function.
Dr. Goldfarb also alleged that medical schools now lower admission standards due to DEI policies, saying, “Some have abandoned requiring the MCAT [Medical College Admission Test] for all applicants even though the MCAT is the best predictor of a student’s ability to become a doctor.”
“By recruiting less qualified students, medical schools are producing less-qualified physicians,” Dr. Goldfarb said.
Do No Harm found out that the University of California Los Angeles School of Medicine required first-year students to attend a course titled, “Structural Racism and Health Equity,” where in one exercise, students were divided by racial group and discussed antiracist prompts, according to The Wall Street Journal. The school later dropped the exercise following a civil rights complaint from Do No Harm.
“DEI puts Americans’ lives at risk. The best way to save lives is to get DEI out of medicine now,” he emphasized.