LAUSR

W e read with interest the Perspective by Anderson and colleagues and applaud their commitment to addressing racism in medical training. However, we write with concern that by focusing on the attitudes of individual medical school applicants, the authors imply that racism is a feature of individuals rather than a system. Medical education requires comprehensive approaches to systemic racism. Racism cannot be dismantled by removing racist individuals, it must be abolished through antiracist policies.We cannot merely pluck out weeds; we must change the soil. Electing not to admit students with “racist beliefs,” which are mutable, misses an opportunity to intervene upon the underlying causes of individual racist attitudes. We provide recommendations for reforming the conditions that make it advantageous to think and act in racist ways: