"Implicit bias training"-- a scam with an insidious purpose

I understand implicit bias in the context of race to be the tendency, unconsciously, to reach adverse conclusions about people based on their race. A thriving industry is now devoted to combatting this tendency by offering “implicit bias training.” Students at many colleges and employees in many jobs are required to take this training.

The case for such a requirement is weak. Not because implicit bias doesn’t exist, but because, according to a study by Gregory Mitchell, a law professor at the University of Virginia with a doctorate in psychology: (1) evidence fails to show that tests for implicit bias can predict who will and who won’t discriminate in a given situation, and (2) evidence fails to show that implicit bias can be changed through training and education. (See also this article and this one.)

If having implicit bias has not been shown to cause discriminatory decisions and if, in any case, implicit bias can’t be remedied through training, then taking implicit bias training is a waste of time and offering it is a waste of resources.

Furthermore, as Mitchell points out, there are serious potential disadvantages to implicit bias training. They include loss of trust and increased suspicion within an organization, more impersonal and uncomfortable interactions among members of different groups, and compensatory measures aimed at promoting particular groups at the expense of merit-based decisionmaking.

Professor Mitchell’s case against implicit bias training is bolstered by this op-ed in today’s Washington Post by Marilyn Singleton, a black physician. Singleton is “appalled” by the requirement in California, where she practices medicine, that all physicians in the state take implicit bias training — 50 hours of it every two years as a condition of retaining one’s medical license.

She explains:

The malignant false assumption that Black people are inherently inferior intellectually has been traded in for the malignant false assumption that White people are inherently racist. That is the basic message conveyed by “implicit bias training,” which is now mandatory for California physicians; it is a message that I believe is harmful both to physicians and patients. . . .

Think about the message this mandate sends to Black physicians. It suggests that I should be wary of my White colleagues because, after all, they’re biased against people like me. Sure, they can undergo frequent training, but their bias is always going to be there, beneath the surface, threatening to rear its ugly, racist head. Collegiality and collaboration — two essential components of high-quality medical care — are targeted by this mandate. Call that an implicit bias. . . .

The message to physicians is bad enough, but the message to patients is much worse. Black people are, in effect, being told that White physicians are likely to quite literally damage our health. If that’s the case, why on earth would you seek medical care, unless you could be absolutely certain of not being treated by a White physician? And if you do seek medical care, why wouldn’t you doubt every word from a White doctor who is inherently prejudiced against you?

The messages conveyed by implicit bias training for doctors aren’t just harmful, they are false in Dr. Singleton’s experience:

Since I became a physician [in the 1970s], I have seen exactly one instance of racism in health care — and it was from a patient, not a fellow physician. As for my colleagues, I have been consistently impressed with the conscientious, individualized care they have provided to patients of every race and culture. When we all took our oath to “first, do no harm,” we meant it, and we live it. I can’t imagine spending my entire career thinking my peers can’t uphold that oath without constant racial reeducation.

She concludes:

The whole point of implicit bias training is to create better health outcomes for Black patients and others who might be the target of discrimination, but the opposite seems more likely. It fosters a climate of distrust and resentment that threatens to undermine the medical and moral progress I’ve seen over the decades. When I graduated from medical school, we were moving past the era of racial obsession and anger. Why are we going back to the days when race defined so many lives and dimmed so many futures?

One answer is that there’s money to be made from it. Implicit bias training is, as I said, a thriving industry.

The other answer is that it serves the non-financial interests of many on the left to foster the racial distrust and discord that bother Dr. Singleton and to deny that the racial progress she applauds is real. What better way to undermine our country?

And what better vehicle than “struggle sessions” sponsored by the nation’s schools, employers, and licensing agencies?