Kamala Harris didn’t misspeak — she just sent a DEI warning to America

For once, Kamala Harris didn’t misspeak.

The former vice-president-turned-failed-presidential-candidate recently appeared with Michigan Senate hopeful Abdul el Sayed. She vigorously defended the divisive and discriminatory ideology of “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” saying that the “attack on DEI is an attack on maternal care,” and especially “black women.” These words betray two things that ought to worry every American.

First, the Left is still completely obsessed with DEI and will bring it back as soon as possible.

Second, that obsession is grounded in falsehoods that endanger Americans.

Since President Donald Trump beat Harris in the 2024 election, DEI has been on the defensive. Federal DEI initiatives have largely disappeared, as the spigot of taxpayer funding has dried up. Major companies have outwardly rolled back DEI commitments and scrubbed their websites of the language. And in higher education, a growing number of schools are dismantling their DEI departments.

But make no mistake: DEI activists are just biding their time. At medical schools, for instance, many DEI offices have simply been renamed. Their staff has been given different titles for the same work. Overall, 55% of medical schools still have DEI offices, committees, or staff. They’re waiting for the chance to fly the DEI flag once again. In other words, they’re waiting for the left to regain power in Washington, D.C., whether it’s President Kamala Harris or someone else.

Yet, if and when DEI roars back, it will still be divisive, discriminatory, and dead wrong to boot. The latest quote from Harris is proof.

For years, DEI’s defenders have said that it’s uniquely necessary for maternal health. Specifically, it’s essential for saving black mothers from dying during childbirth. Sadly, black mothers do have a higher maternal mortality rate than mothers of other races, and as the failed argument goes, the best way to save their lives is to ensure they’re seen by black doctors. Ergo, we need DEI programs to ensure that medical schools admit and graduate black doctors, from affirmative action to lower (or no) grading standards. Never mind that lower-quality physicians provide worse care to patients, regardless of race.

The appeal to emotion is powerful, and as a society, saving mothers’ lives is a moral and medical imperative. But DEI won’t do it. The basic assumption of medical DEI is that patients do best when they’re matched with doctors of the same race, a concept known as “racial concordance” that’s really tantamount to racial segregation. Yet, my colleagues at Do No Harm have analyzed the studies on this issue, and their findings are unmistakable: Matching patients and doctors by race doesn’t improve health outcomes.

In other words, the DEI crowd is completely wrong. Black mothers don’t need black doctors. They need the best doctors, regardless of race.

The facts all point in this direction. When DEI activists say black mothers need black doctors, they’re really saying that other doctors are biased or racist, so they provide worse care. Yet maternal mortality is extremely complicated and defies such a simplistic explanation, as the medical research makes clear. Vital records also show that many of the leading causes of black maternal mortality are largely preventable or manageable medical conditions.

Unfortunately, pregnant black women tend to seek medical care less often and later in pregnancy relative to white women, so their conditions tend to be more advanced and harder to treat. They are also less likely to attend postpartum visits, which are very important for addressing complications after delivery. The solution is to help them get earlier care and more care, regardless of the doctor’s skin color.

As a country, we should do everything in our power to help pregnant mothers get the care they need. We should do our best to help black mothers. But we don’t need DEI to do that. We don’t need to lower standards for medical school. We don’t need to pick doctors based on race. And we don’t need to match doctors by race — a point that ought to be obvious to everyone.

But that’s what the Left wants to do, and Harris all but said it. She’s telling people that the Left will bring back DEI in a heartbeat. She’s saying they will use the force of the federal government to embed DEI in as many institutions as possible, many of which will be happy to oblige.

Harris didn’t misspeak. She told America that the fight against divisive and discriminatory DEI is just getting started.

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