Critics of affirmative action have launched a long-shot appeal aimed at stopping California from requiring training on unconscious bias in every continuing medical education class.
A July ruling by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld California’s right to mandate that every course doctors take to remain licensed must address how bias contributes to poorer health outcomes for racial and ethnic minorities. The ruling against the nonprofit Do No Harm and Los Angeles ophthalmologist Azadeh Khatibi amounts to a victory for California as it fights the Trump administration and right-leaning advocacy and legal groups’ attacks on perceived “wokeness.”
In August, the Pacific Legal Foundation, which represents Do No Harm and Khatibi, asked that a panel of 11 appellate judges reconsider what attorney Caleb Trotter characterized as a “very clearly wrong” decision. Trotter, a senior attorney for the Pacific Legal Foundation, expects the court’s response in October. If the appeal fails, he said, his firm would likely appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. At stake, legal scholars say, is the latitude of states to prescribe educational content, including health equity training, for licensed professionals.
“The general recent tenor of the Supreme Court’s First Amendment jurisprudence has been very speech protective, so that we would like our odds with, of course, the understanding that any attempt to get the Sup …