The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley School of Medicine isn’t one of the institutions being sued by a group that wants admissions offices to give preferential treatment to white men. But as it is part of the University of Texas System, which has been sued, and has one of the nation’s highest percentages of minority students as well as one of its most attractive cost structures, the case merits attention in South Texas, where lawmakers already have conceded that our historic lack of educational opportunity was an obvious example of racial discrimination.
A conservative group called America First Legal filed suit against six Texas medical schools, five of them in the UT System, on behalf of a man who applied and was denied admission to all six institutions, along with individual school administrators and admissions officials. The lawsuit alleges the only reason he didn’t get in is because he is white.
The group, which says it is “combating the left’s radical and lawless agenda,” also filed suit against the UT System last year on behalf of a white man who applied unsuccessfully for a professorship at UT Austin.
Gov. Greg Abbott supports the lawsuits and last month sent a letter to all state universities and agencies ordering them to stop using all affirmative action policies. UT and Texas A&M officials both have announced that they have ended or changed their diversity programs, and UT System Chairman Kevin Eltife said he welcomes any review of its policies in the interest of improving them.
Many analysts say the case could make it to the Supreme Court, which in 2016 endorsed UT’s practices. However, the makeup of the court was different then and current justices already have reversed some previous decisions.
Certainly, it’s safe to assume that people want the best doctors possible to treat their ills, and wouldn’t want to place their welfare in the hands of someone who earned a shingle for a reason other than competence. However, experts have long insisted that the current pool doctors condemns millions of Americans to subpar health care specifically because of racial and cultural issues. Half of our nation’s population is Hispanic or Black, although only 6.9% of U.S. doctors are Hispanic and 5.7% are Black. This shortage creates cultural and language barriers that too often affect the quality of care people receive, especially in regions such as the Valley where English is not the primary language for so many patients.
The UTRGV School of Medicine was created in large part to address both the lack of opportunity for Hispanics and other minorities who can become excellent physicians with such access, and also to help improve the lives of many South Texas residents and others who could be suffering needlessly because they don’t have the same access to quality health care that people have in other parts of the country. If lawsuits start to target high-minority institutions such as UTRGV, the lives of people who already suffer a chronic lack of quality health care and professional opportunity could be doubly affected.
