The College Fix

Accreditation council to ‘discuss action’ at June board meeting

A leading accreditor of graduate medical education programs announced on Friday the suspension of two “diversity” requirements, following a recent federal executive order targeting “diversity, equity, and inclusion” mandates among accreditors.

The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education pointed to external pressures in a news release announcing the decision.

ACGME “heard significant concerns from multiple constituents in several states and from federal Sponsoring Institutions about their ability to comply with … requirements addressing diversity in light of state or federal laws,” the group stated.

Therefore, the ACGME Board of Directors’ Executive Committee has paused its enforcement of these requirements and “will discuss this action with the ACGME Board at its June 2025 meeting,” it stated.

The accreditor cited its hiring mandates, which demand that residency programs and their sponsoring institutions, such as medical schools, implement recruitment and retention strategies to “boost diversity,” medical advocacy group Do No Harm reported.

“As we’ve seen, medical schools subject to accreditation requirements that they pursue diversity objectives are keen to pass the buck and blame their DEI initiatives on accreditors,” Do No Harm staff wrote.

“For residency programs specifically, the ACGME’s decision removes all plausible deniability,” they wrote.

Additionally, Do No Harm Senior Fellow Travis Morrell stated the ACGME “has a monopoly on physicians’ postgraduate education, and was making programs choose trainees, supervising teachers (attendings), and even non-clinician staff based on race,” in a post on X Monday.

He called the accreditor’s decision to suspend its requirements an “encouraging first step.” However, “now it must permanently eliminate these requirements – along with the equity in education rule it still enforces,” Morrell stated.

The changes follow President Donald Trump’s April executive order titled “Reforming Accreditation to Strengthen Higher Education.”

The order forbids accreditors from requiring DEI practices for approval. New accreditation organizations are also expected to be created as a result of this order, The College Fix previously reported.

The order specifically mentions the ACGME, “which is the sole accreditor for both allopathic and osteopathic medical residency and fellowship programs.”

The accreditor “‘expect[s]’ institutions to focus on implementing ‘policies and procedures related to recruitment and retention of individuals underrepresented in medicine,’ including ‘racial and ethnic minority individuals,’” the order states.

“The standards for training tomorrow’s doctors should focus solely on providing the highest quality care, and certainly not on requiring unlawful discrimination,” it states.

Despite these changes, however, ACGME still hosts an Equity Matters initiative, offering educational videos to offer “strategic insights for advancing diversity within the physician workforce and fostering safe, equitable learning environments,” according to its website. 

MORE: UCLA medical school allegedly still discriminating based on race

IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: Medical students studying at school; New Africa/Shutterstock

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