Support for Discrimination and Marginalization? Not Surprising

Op Ed

Sonia Fang, Western University

 

On March 14, dvm360.com posted an article entitled “Minority students report strong support from veterinary schools, but racism and sexism remain, study says”.  The article provided preliminary results from the Association of Veterinary Medical Colleges (AAVMC) climate study conducted by Lisa Greenhill (Associate Executive Director for Institutional Research and Diversity at the AAVMC).  Some of the results included that one in five female veterinary students reported hearing sexist language at their school, and LGBT students reported they did not have a faculty or staff member to confide in at higher rates than those students who did not identify as LGBT.  In response to the article, DVM NewsMagazine published a letter from Dr. Larry Fisher of Topeka, Kansas.

 

I was disappointed and disturbed by the letter printed in DVM NewsMagazine.  On a purely factual level, the statements leveled against LGBT students are not founded in current historical analysis, and the myth that homosexuality has lead to society’s decline has been debunked repeatedly.[1]  Not to mention, even if there were civilizations for which an increase in homosexual activity coincided with a society’s purported decline, there would still be the classic issue of confusing correlation with causation, a definite and basic no-no in evidence-based research.  There isn’t evidence for homosexuality correlating with the destruction of civilizations, much less any research performed demonstrating its causation. 

 

Regardless of the factual inaccuracies, I was taken aback because the printing of this letter was, in itself, telling of the problems that we as LGBT veterinary students face on a systemic level.

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