The College Fix

The University of California at Los Angeles Medical School recently canceled a scheduled lecture making the case that the American opioid crisis of the past two decades should be blamed on “whiteness.”

The topic was changed two days before the lecture was scheduled to take place and attendance was limited to in-person only, National Review reported.

The abrupt change comes as the med school faces increasing criticisms for a required course med students must take that advances a variety of progressive narratives, such as white settler colonialism, open borders and secular humanism.

Initially, the school advertised the opioid lecture as featuring Dr. Helena Hansen and titled “Beyond Magic Bullets: Whiteness as a Structural Driver of the Opioid Crisis.”

On April 2, the med school sent an email update, obtained by National Review, notifying students of the change in plans for the topic and setting for the opioid speech. The title of the lecture was changed to “BioSocial Futures: Toward a Symbiotic, Community Ecology of Health.” It specified the lecture was in-person only, with no Zoom attendance or recording option. No explanation was given for the changes.

Hansen is a psychiatrist and anthropologist, according to her faculty bio. She wrote the book “Whiteout: How Racial Capitalism Changed the Color of Opioids in America.”

Neither UCLA Medical School nor Hansen responded to National Review’s request for comment.

The April 4 lecture was sponsored by the Gold Humanism Honor Society.

The society “reinforces and supports the human connection in healthcare, which is essential for the health of patients and clinicians,” its website notes. The society’s recent summit also included sessions on diversity, equity and inclusion in health practice, ableism, “trauma-informed” medical care, and other so-called “humanist” topics.

The U.S. has been in the midst of an opioid epidemic for the past two decades, killing more than 560,000 Americans, according to the Federal Communications Commission.

UCLA’s med school has recently achieved a serious reputation for woke indoctrination. The canceled “whiteness” lecture is just the latest example of the school’s emphasis on racial identity.

The medical school has a mandatory class for first-year students called “Structural Racism and Health Equity,” according to reporting by the Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro.

1/ BREAKING: We've obtained internal emails from UCLA's medical school — supposedly one of the best in the country. If you want to understand how DEI and anti-white, anti-American hatred have been mainlined into the medical profession, you need to see this.🧵

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) March 1, 2024

Suggested readings for students include the article “Decolonization is not a metaphor.” The class aims to fight against “the aftermath of settler colonialism and white supremacy.”

The College Fix also reported earlier this month on how UCLA medical students were reportedly ordered to say a “non-secular prayer” to “Mama Earth” during the mandatory structural racism class.

In January, National Review also reported the required racism course includes readings advocating for the abolition of borders as a public health measure, arguing the current border crisis is a myth.

“The UCLA Health & David Geffen School of Medicine pushing absurd political narratives under the guise of required reading for first-year medical students should immediately stop,” Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, chairman of Do No Harm, told National Review at the time. “UCLA should focus on providing the highest quality education to future doctors, not indoctrinate them in progressive politics.”

MORE: Mandatory ‘prayer’ to ‘Mama Earth’ in UCLA med school ‘structural racism’ class

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