NEW YORK
AP
–
Michael Bloomberg’s Bloomberg Philanthropies is announcing a $600 million gift to the endowments of four historically black medical schools.
Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor and billionaire founder of Bloomberg LP, will make the announcement Tuesday in New York at the annual convention of the National Medical Association, an organization that advocates for African-American doctors.
“This gift will empower new generations of black doctors to create a healthier and more equitable future for our country,” Bloomberg said in a statement.
Black Americans fare worse on measures of health compared to white Americans, an Associated Press series reported last year. Experts believe that increasing representation among doctors is a solution that can break these long-standing inequalities. In 2022, only 6% of American doctors were black, even though black Americans represent 13% of the population.
The gifts are among the largest private donations to any historically black college or university, with $175 million each to Howard University College of Medicine, Meharry College of Medicine and Morehouse School of Medicine. Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science will receive $75 million. Xavier University of Louisiana, which is opening a new medical school, will also receive a $5 million grant.
The donations will double the size of three of the medical school’s endowments, Bloomberg Philanthropies said.
The commitment follows a $1 billion pledge Bloomberg made in July to Johns Hopkins University that would mean most medical students there would no longer pay tuition. The four historically black medical schools are still deciding with Bloomberg Philanthropies how the latest gifts will be used for their endowments, said Garnesha Ezediaro, who directs Bloomberg’s Greenwood Philanthropies Initiative.
The initiative, named after the race massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma, more than 100 years ago, was originally part of Bloomberg’s campaign as the Democratic nominee for president in 2020. After withdrawing from the race, he asked his philanthropy to pursued efforts to reduce the racial wealth gap, and so far, it has given $896 million, including this latest gift to medical schools, Ezediaro said.
In 2020, Bloomberg awarded the same medical schools a total of $100 million that mostly went toward reducing the debt load of enrolled students who the schools said were at serious risk of not continuing due to financial burdens caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
“When we talked about helping to secure and support the next generation of black doctors, we meant it,” Ezediaro said.
Valerie Montgomery Rice, president of the Morehouse School of Medicine, said the gift relieved an average of $100,000 in debt for enrolled medical students. She said the gift has helped her school significantly increase fundraising.
“But our endowment and the size of our endowment has continued to be a challenge, and we’ve been very vocal about that. And he listened to us,” she said of Bloomberg and the latest donation.
In January, the Lilly Endowment awarded $100 million to the United Negro College Fund toward a pooled endowment fund for 37 HBCUs. That same month, Spelman College, a historically black women’s college in Atlanta, received a $100 million donation from Ronda Stryker and her husband, William Johnston, chairman of the Greenleaf Trust.
Denise Smith, deputy director of higher education policy and a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, said the gift to Spelman was the largest single donation to an HBCU that she was aware of, speaking before Bloomberg’s announcement. Philanthropies on Tuesday.
Smith authored a 2021 report on financial disparities between HBCUs and other institutions of higher education, including the failure of many states to fulfill their promises to fund historically black land grant schools. As a result, she said philanthropic gifts have played an important role in supporting HBCUs and pointed to billionaire philanthropist and author MacKenzie Scott’s gifts to HBCUs in 2020 and 2021 as a new chain reaction of donor support other great ones.
“The donations that followed are the kind of momentum and support that institutions need right now,” Smith said.
Dr. Yolanda Lawson, president of the National Medical Association, said she was “relieved” when she heard about the gifts to the four medical schools. With the Supreme Court’s ruling striking down affirmative action last year and attacks on programs meant to support inclusion and equity in schools, she envisions the four schools playing an even bigger role in training and growing the number of black doctors.
“This opportunity and this investment does not only affect those four institutions, but also our country. This affects the health of the country”, she said.
Utibe Essien, a physician and assistant professor at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine who researches racial disparities in treatment, said more investment and investment in earlier educational support before high school and college would make a difference in the number of black students who decide to pursue medicine.
He said he also believes the Supreme Court’s ruling on affirmative action and the backlash against efforts to redress historical discrimination and racial disparities is having an impact on student choices.
“It’s hard for some of the trainees who are thinking about getting into this space to see some of that feedback and follow it,” he said. “Again, I think we get into this spiral where in five to 10 years we’re going to see a disturbing decline in the number of diverse people in our field.”