‘White Privilege’ Nurses Mandated to Undergo ‘Implicit Bias’ Training in Kentucky

A person walks toward the main entrance of St. Claire Regional Medical Center in Morehead, Ky., on Sept. 16, 2021. Jon Cherry/Getty Images

Nurses in Kentucky have been forced to undergo “implicit bias” training to indoctrinate them with concepts such as white people being inherently racist. Those who did not fulfill the course were reportedly being threatened with non-renewal of their licenses.

The Kentucky Board of Nursing (KBN) mandated an “implicit bias” course for nurses in January last year, an incident first reported by the Washington Examiner. The rules required nurses who were actively licensed as of July 1, 2022, to complete the course by July 1, 2023. The course seeks to address the “impact of historical racism and other forms of invidious discrimination on the provision of healthcare” as well as the actions that can be taken to reduce such alleged bias. The course essentially portrays white people as oppressors. One of the diagrams presented during the training is of “overt racism” and “covert racism.”

“Covert racism” includes the denial of “white privilege,” “white silence,” “denying institutional racism,” “weaponizing whiteness,” “Eurocentric school curricula,” “excusing/white-splaining racism,” “claiming reverse racism,” “fetishizing POC,” among others.

Examples of “overt racism” include “public harassment of [persons of color] speaking other than English.” A white woman asking a black woman where she is from is presented as an act of “covert racism.”

The course requirement came amid the renewal period of nursing licenses. According to the Washington Examiner, KBN threatened nurses with “discipline” in case they failed to complete the course.

In an interview with the outlet, Laura Morgan, a nurse and program manager at the medical advocacy Do No Harm, said that KBN informed them the term “discipline” could mean non-renewal of licenses.

However, the organization denied threatening nurses with such actions, according to the outlet. It insisted that the course is required by regulation “considered and passed” by a Kentucky General Assembly committee and that “failure to do it could result in a civil sanction or discipline.”

Race in Nursing Jobs, Imposing Course On Nurses

The implicit bias course was developed by the Kentucky Nurses Association (KNA). In an interview with WKMS radio station in May, KNA’s CEO Delanor Manson blamed the shortage of nurses due to the alleged discrimination against nurses of color. Manson is the first black individual to head the KNA in its 117-year-old history.

According to the organization, roughly 92 percent of nurses in Kentucky are white, 4 percent black, and 1 percent Hispanic while the overall population in the state has 9 percent blacks and 5 percent Hispanics.

Talking about the KNA course, Rebecca Wall, a nurse with four decades of experience, told the Washington Examiner that the Kentucky Board of Nursing “pretty much said we’re all guilty of being racist, and we need to examine the way that we take care of patients and change our behaviors because we are giving substandard care.”

“I had to make a decision at that point as to whether or not I was going to bite the bullet and agree with the assumption that they had that we were all racist,” Wall said. She ended up completing the course.

“It’s offensive to be told if you don’t do this course, you’re out after 40 years … A whole career spent in the field because you don’t agree to the one dogma: you’re done, you’re valueless, you’re not worth it anymore.”

The Epoch Times has reached out to the nursing board for comment.

Pushing DEI Agenda

The Kentucky Board of Nursing’s move to mandate “implicit bias” training is part of a wider nationwide effort to push diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) agenda among corporations, academic institutions, and other organizations.

For instance, tech firms like Google publicly chart the black and Latino employees they have hired.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is looking to hand out awards to more “films of color.”

Wells Fargo provides cheaper loans to firms that meet certain racial quotas.

Lockheed Martin asks its executives to “deconstruct their white male privilege.”

In universities, students are made to take DEI-prescribed courses in colleges, with professors expected to swear oaths to the DEI dogma.

This month, a former principal of the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) took his own life after being subjected to diversity training sessions in 2021. Following the training, the professor ended up getting accused of white supremacy and was bullied.

Despite all attempts to push diversity into corporations, such hires are the ones that have been terminated at higher rates in recent times.

Attrition rates for DEI roles at over 600 companies that have laid off workers since late 2020 outpaced that of non-DEI roles, states a Feb. 7 report by Revolio Labs.

Revolio’s analysis revealed that the churn rate for DEI-related roles at the 600 firms was 33 percent compared to only 21 percent for non-DEI positions.

“Over 300 DEI professionals have left from these companies in the last six months. Amazon, Twitter, and Nike have shed between five and 16 DEI professionals each, and Twitter’s infamous diversity team layoffs are not far behind,” Revolio stated.

“Bearing in mind the typically small size of DEI teams—the median DEI team size in this set of companies is three—these outflows likely amount to the exodus of entire diversity teams.”