\n\tLauren Sausser<\/span><\/p>\n

JACKSON, Miss. \u2014 Jerrian Reedy was 9 when his father was admitted to the hospital in Hattiesburg, about two hours northeast of New Orleans, after sustaining three gunshot wounds. Reedy recalled visiting his dad in the intensive care unit that summer in 2009, even though children weren\u2019t typically permitted in that part of the hospital.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust seeing him laid up in bed, in a hospital bed, it was traumatizing, to say the least,\u201d Reedy said.<\/p>\n

His father died within a week of being admitted, in the middle of a nine-month span when Reedy also lost an aunt and a grandmother. \u201cThey say death comes in threes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

That chain of events prompted him to pursue a career in medicine, one that might help him spare other children from losing loved ones too soon.<\/p>\n

Fifteen years later, Reedy has completed his first year at the University of Mississippi School of Medicine \u2014 a remarkable feat, and not only because his career path was born of grief and trauma. Reedy is among a small share of Black medical school students in a state where nearly 4 in 10 people \u2014 but only 1 in 10 doctors<\/a> \u2014 identify as Black or African American. Of the 660 medical school students enrolled in the same four-year program as Reedy, 82 students, or about 12%, are Black.<\/p>\n

Medical schools around the country are trying to recruit Black, Hispanic, and Native American students, all of whom remain disproportionately underrepresented in the field of medicine. Research has shown that patients of color prefer seeing doctors of their own race \u2013 and some studies have shown health outcomes are better for Black patients seeing Black doctors.<\/p>\n

But a recent swell of Republican opposition threatens to upend those efforts, school administrators say, and could exacerbate deep health disparities already experienced by people of color.<\/p>\n

Since 2023 \u2014 the year the Supreme Court voted to outlaw affirmative action<\/a> in higher education \u2014 more than two dozen states, including Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Texas, have introduced or passed laws to restrict or ban diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, programs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t expect this movement of anti-DEI legislation to slow down or stop at all,\u201d said Anton Gunn, a health care consultant and former head of the Office of External Affairs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. \u201cAnd it likely will exacerbate if Donald Trump gets the opportunity to be president of the United States again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Diversity Programs Face Pushback<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 2023, Florida and Texas became the first states to pass laws that banned DEI efforts in higher education. Several other states, including Idaho, North Carolina, and Wyoming, passed laws targeting such programs this year.<\/p>\n

In Mississippi, state Rep. Becky Currie and state Sen. Angela Burks Hill, both Republicans, introduced separate bills that would have restricted how colleges and universities could spend money on DEI initiatives. Both bills died in legislative committees and were not brought before the 2024 legislature for a vote.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Hill said that Mississippi needs more doctors of all kinds, not just more Black doctors, and that she thinks money spent on DEI salaries and programs should be reallocated to initiatives benefiting all students.<\/p>\n

\u201cQualifications should determine who gets into medical school not color or socioeconomic status,\u201d she said. \u201cCan\u2019t we just be happy with more highly qualified doctors no matter their skin color? I thought a color blind society was the goal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nationally, the movement to ban DEI programs has broad conservative support.<\/p>\n

Jay Greene, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, said he believes diversity programs \u201cfail for a hundred reasons.\u201d He cited research he conducted<\/a> with a conservative medical advocacy group called Do No Harm refuting the premise that access to Black doctors improves health outcomes among Black patients.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat doesn\u2019t mean there\u2019s no potential benefits for having greater diversity in the doctor workforce,\u201d Greene said. Having more Black doctors, for example, might encourage more Black children to consider a career in health care, he said. \u201cBut that benefit is not health outcomes.\u201d<\/p>\n