NEW YORK — Michael Bloomberg’s organization, Bloomberg Philanthropies, is announcing a $600 million endowment gift from four historically black medical schools.
Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City 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, more equitable future for our country,” Bloomberg said in a statement.
Black Americans fare worse in terms of health compared to white Americans, a Associated Press series reported last year. Experts believe increasing representation among doctors It is a solution that can end these long-standing inequalities. As of 2021, only 6% of US doctors are Black, even though Black Americans make up 13% of the population.
The gifts are among the largest private donations to any historically black college or university, with $175 million each going to Howard University College of Medicine, Meharry Medical College and Morehouse School of Medicine. Charles Drew Medical University & Science will receive US$75 million. Xavier University of Louisiana, which is opening a new medical school, will also receive a $5 million grant.
The donations will more than double the size of the medical schools’ three endowments, Bloomberg Philanthropies said.
The commitment follows a US$1 billion pledge Bloomberg told Johns Hopkins University in July that this would mean most medical students will no longer pay tuition. The four historically black medical schools are still deciding with Bloomberg Philanthropies how the latest donations from their endowments will be used, said Garnesha Ezediaro, who leads Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Greenwood Initiative.
The initiative, named in honor of the racial massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma more than 100 years ago, it was initially part of Bloomberg Campaign as the Democratic presidential candidate in 2020. After withdrawing from the race, he called on his philanthropy to pursue efforts to reduce the racial wealth gap and has so far committed $896 million, including this latest donation to medical schools , said Ezediaro. .
In 2020, Bloomberg awarded the same medical schools a total of $100 million, primarily aimed at reducing debt for enrolled students, which the schools said were at serious risk of not continuing due to financial burdens compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic. .
“When we talk about helping protect and support the next generation of Black doctors, we mean it literally,” Ezediaro said.
Valerie Montgomery Rice, president of Morehouse School of Medicine, said the donation relieved an average of $100,000 in debt for enrolled medical students. She said the gift helped her school significantly increase fundraising.
“But our endowment and the size of our endowment has continued to be a challenge, and we have been very vocal about that. And he listened to us,” she said of Bloomberg and the latest donation.
In January, the Lilly Endowment gave $100 million for the United Negro College Fund to a joint endowment fund for 37 HBCUs. That same month, Spelman College, a historically black women’s college in Atlanta, received a $100 million gift from Ronda Stryker and her husband, William Johnston, president of the Greenleaf Trust.
Denise Smith, deputy director of higher education policy and 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 ahead of Bloomberg Philanthropies’ announcement on Tuesday.
Smith wrote a 2021 report on the 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 giving has 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 triggering a new chain reaction of support from other major donors.
“The donations that followed are the kind of boost and support that institutions need right now,” Smith said.
Dr. Yolanda Lawson, president of the National Medical Association, said she felt “relief” when she learned of the donations to the four medical schools. With the Supreme Court ruling overturning affirmative action last year and the attacks on programs designed to support inclusion and equity in schools, she predicts that the four schools will play an even greater role in training and increasing the number of Black doctors.
“This opportunity and this investment affects not only these four institutions, but it affects our country. This affects the health of the country,” she said.
Utibe Essien, a physician and assistant professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA who researches racial disparities in treatment, said that more investment and investment in early 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 ruling on affirmative action and the backlash against efforts to correct historic discrimination and racial inequities have an impact on students’ choices.
“It’s hard for some of the trainees who are thinking about getting into this space to see some of that backlash and pursue it,” he said. “Once again, I think we’ve entered this spiral where within five to 10 years we’re going to see a worrying drop in the number of diverse people in our area.”
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