Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy Staff Publications
Publication Date
10-1-2024
Journal
The American Journal of Bioethics
DOI
10.1080/15265161.2024.2371116
PMID
39102590
Published Open-Access
yes
Keywords
Humans, Cultural Diversity, Bioethics, Racism, Advisory Committees, Social Justice, United States, Social Inclusion, Biomedical research, DEI, education, history, race and ethnicity, research ethics
Abstract
Recent calls to address racism in bioethics reflect a sense of urgency to mitigate the lethal effects of a lack of action. While the field was catalyzed largely in response to pivotal events deeply rooted in racism and other structures of oppression embedded in research and health care, it has failed to center racial justice in its scholarship, pedagogy, advocacy, and practice, and neglected to integrate anti-racism as a central consideration. Academic bioethics programs play a key role in determining the field's norms and practices, including methodologies, funding priorities, and professional networks that bear on equity, inclusion, and epistemic justice. This article describes recommendations from the Racial Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (REDI) Task Force commissioned by the Association of Bioethics Program Directors to prioritize and strengthen anti-racist practices in bioethics programmatic endeavors and to evaluate and develop specific goals to advance REDI.