Health care is the new battlefront for anti-DEI attacks

Health care is the new battlefront for anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) attacks. It reflects a broadening of the wave of state-level anti-DEI in higher education legislation that has surged through the country with 65 anti-DEI bills introduced since 2023, eight of which have become law [1]. These anti-DEI efforts are also tightly linked to the 2022 US Supreme Court reversal of Roe v. Wade and the anti-trans and anti-abortion legislation that has swept through the country. Moreover, they are a part of a larger centuries-old pattern of racial progress and subsequent rageful backlash. The impact of growing attacks on DEI initiatives within healthcare portends potentially devastating consequences for existing efforts to diversify the healthcare workforce in service of an increasingly diverse nation and on existing racialized health inequities in the US.