Petition: UMMS Students and Alumni Demand an Alternative White Coat Speaker (Public)

*Signatures private except when presented to administration

We, the undersigned current and incoming medical students at the University of Michigan Medical School implore the University of Michigan Medical School administration to choose an alternative keynote speaker at this year’s White Coat Ceremony. Dr. Kristin Collier has shared multiple anti-choice posts on her public social media and has made similar comments in interviews. These comments are antithetical to the tenets of reproductive justice as restrictions on abortion affect women of color, other marginalized women, and trans people disproportionately. According to a recent poll of incoming M1’s, 91.7% of 96 respondents indicated that they were strongly against or against having Dr. Collier as the speaker, and 57% of 89 respondents would consider not attending the White Coat Ceremony if she were kept on as the speaker.

While we support the rights of freedom of speech and religion, an anti-choice speaker as a representative of the University of Michigan undermines the University’s position on abortion and supports the non-universal, theology-rooted platform to restrict abortion access, an essential part of medical care. This is not simply a disagreement on personal opinion; through our demand we are standing up in solidarity against groups who are trying to take away human rights and restrict medical care. We demand that UM stands in solidarity with us and selects a speaker whose values align with institutional policies, students, and the broader medical community. This speaker should inspire the next generation of healthcare providers to be courageous advocates for patient autonomy and our communities.

The incongruency of UM publicly supporting abortion access while choosing a White Coat Ceremony speaker who works to dismantle it is reminiscent of our institution’s policies on racial justice described in Matthew Johnson’s recent book Undermining Racial Justice. In it, Johnson argues that "UM leaders incorporated black student dissent selectively into the institution's policies, practices, and values. This strategy was used to prevent activism from disrupting the institutional priorities that campus leaders deemed more important than racial justice." In order to ‘do no harm’, we must be unambiguous and consistent in our commitment to all aspects of human rights. Doing so is essential in building trust within our own community and with future patients.

From disregarding its founding treaty to financially support indigenious students for over 100 years to the expansion of its police force in the 1990s to suppress student activism, UM’s history includes a pattern of disregarding and actively silencing the voices of students and members of our community even beyond racial justice: UM adminstration ignored Jon Vaughn’s protest for 150 days during which he demanded the University support survivors of sexual assault by a UM physician, delayed reporting of a child pornography scandal at UM Hospital under the past and interim President Mary Sue Coleman, and disregarded many more systemic issues of power, governance, and finances under disgraced former President Schlissel. Thankfully, there is precedent for University administration changing course when students work together and demand it.

The student voices below demonstrate the impact of UM giving a platform to an anti-choice physician for the White Coat Ceremony:

“I’m already scared that I’ve chosen to attend school in a state where I may very well lose my right to a safe abortion, and the decision by UMMS to have Dr. Collier as a keynote speaker makes this even scarier. It makes me seriously doubt whether the school will continue to advocate for reproductive rights.”
“While I can respect freedom of speech, to give Dr Collier a platform in the current environment of the overturning of Roe v. Wade is frankly [inconsiderate of the current situation]… I think Dr Collier’s appearance at this time is inappropriate. Her appearance would be better suited for a learning opportunity or debate at a different time, not at a ceremony where families will be in attendance and potential resentment will sour the occasion.”
“I am attending UMMS in large part because of their progressive approach to health care and education, and the choice to have Dr. Collier as keynote speaker makes me question my decision.”
“There are those who will say that healthcare and medicine ought to be an apolitical space, and that our cohorts' rejection of Dr. Kristin Collier as speaker is thereby inappropriate in that it represents a political position. But medicine is inherently political in so far as the health of current and future patients is dictated and shaped by social and political forces … More so, it is simply irrational and inconsistent for Dr. Collier to speak at a ceremony wherein incoming students vow to uphold patient autonomy when she herself devalues such a moral principle. I am deeply disappointed in the selection of Dr. Collier for keynote speaker and do not wish to listen to her words, nevertheless be inspired by them at the beginning of my medical education."

We demand that the University of Michigan listen to our voices!

We demand that the University of Michigan support reproductive justice!!

We demand an alternative speaker for this year’s White Coat Ceremony!!!