Most Americans don’t realize this, but their health has been at risk for years. Divisive and discriminatory ideology has crept into health education, under the guise of so-called “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” This politicized worldview has become foundational not only at medical schools, but also at the nursing schools that train my profession. The sudden turn toward indoctrination means that future nurses are spending less time actually studying the essentials of nursing and patient care.
The good news is that this disease is finally being contained and treated. In April, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing quietly abandoned its DEI mandates. That matters because the AACN effectively dictates curriculum at over 2,100 nursing schools. These schools can now focus more fully on their core mission of training nurses to treat patients with respect and provide the highest-quality care.
As a registered nurse, I can attest that this change is urgently needed. I went to nursing school before DEI had infected most of healthcare education. I was taught to place patient-centered care above all else, with a complete focus on the person in front of me in every treatment situation. Nursing ethics demand nothing less, and patient health outcomes hang in the balance.
DEI flies in the face of this patient-first obligation. The ideology demands that people be categorized by their race, gender, and other characteristics, lumping them into groups based on their identity. But that’s incompatible with viewing each patient as a distinct individual with unique medical needs.
In practice, DEI pushes healthcare professionals to second-guess their clinical judgments in favor of prescribed political frameworks. For example, a nurse caring for a patient with diabetes may feel pressure to prioritize discussions about the patient’s identity or presumed social barriers rather than focusing on stabilizing blood glucose, medication adherence, and dietary management. DEI even pushes healthcare professionals to view treatment through a discriminatory lens, again prioritizing care based on a patient’s identity instead of their individual conditions.
The AACN’s DEI mandates moved nursing backward. In 2021, the association issued a new version of its standards for core competencies. These are the things it expects nursing schools to teach, and through the accreditation process, these expectations become an educational mandate for nursing schools. Yet the 2021 version – written after the “racial reckoning” trumpeted by the media and cultural elites – was thoroughly politicized.
Where to begin? The AACN demanded that nursing schools “advance equitable population health policy” – i.e., focus on identity groups rather than individuals. It required training in “social justice and health equity” – i.e., politicized topics that have little to do with nursing. The AACN even expected nurses to “promote advocacy efforts” related to “social justice” and DEI. And of course, the association wanted nurses to learn about the “processes and structures that perpetuate racism,” and “design system improvement strategies” to fix them.
Over the past five years, these demands have metastasized across nursing education. Yet as future nurses have spent more time learning about fashionable political issues, they’ve spent less time learning about the care that patients need. In other words, the recent graduates of nursing schools have been less equipped to fulfill their fundamental duties. Nursing is an extraordinarily demanding field, and by diverting education time for DEI, nursing schools have directly put patient health at risk.
The AACN finally seems to have realized its mistake. Its 2026 standards eliminate almost every reference to DEI, racism, and bias. While a few stray lines remain, they don’t amount to the sweeping mandates of the 2021 version. As such, nursing schools can now revise their curriculum around training the best possible nurses – the thing they’re supposed to do and that Americans expect them to do.
This reversal is long overdue. But nursing isn’t the only part of healthcare that’s quietly walking away from DEI. The accreditor that dictates curriculum at America’s 150-plus medical schools – the Liaison Committee on Medical Education – fully abandoned its own DEI mandates in March. Unfortunately, the accreditors that oversee other parts of healthcare education, including social work, still have DEI mandates. They are doing healthcare professionals – and the patients they treat – a tremendous disservice.
I suspect that President Trump’s campaign against DEI played a major role in the sudden, silent shift at the American Association of Colleges of Nursing. Yet whatever the reason, the move is most welcome. My fellow nurses should never be trained to be political activists or identity-obsessed ideologues. To the contrary: We should only be trained to treat the patient in front of us. Americans’ health and well-being should never have been in danger in the first place.
