Michael Bloomberg’s organization, Bloomberg Philanthropies, announced a $600 million donation to the endowments of four historically black medical schools.
Bloomberg, a former New York mayor and billionaire founder of Bloomberg LP, made 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 physicians to create a healthier, more equitable future for our country,” Bloomberg said in a statement.
Black Americans have worse health outcomes than white Americans, according to a series of Associated Press stories last year. Experts say greater representation among doctors is one solution that could end these long-standing inequities. As of 2022, only 6% of U.S. doctors were Black, even though Black Americans make up 13% of the population.
The gifts are among the largest private donations to a historically black college or university, with $175 million each going to Howard University School of Medicine, Meharry School 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.
According to Bloomberg Philanthropies, the gifts will more than double the size of the endowments of three medical schools.
The commitment follows a Billion Dollar Promise In July, Bloomberg made an offer to Johns Hopkins University, meaning most of the university’s medical students will no longer pay tuition. The four historically black medical schools are still deciding with Bloomberg Philanthropies how the remaining donations to their foundations will be used, said Garnesha Ezediaro, who leads Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Greenwood Initiative.
The initiative, named after the community destroyed in the Tulsa, Oklahoma, race massacre more than 100 years ago, was initially part of Bloomberg’s campaign as the Democratic presidential nominee in 2020. After withdrawing from the race, he directed his philanthropic organization to continue its efforts to close the racial wealth gap and has so far committed $896 million, including this latest donation to medical schools, Ezediaro said.
In 2020, Bloomberg awarded the same medical schools a total of $100 million, primarily to reduce debt for enrolled students, who the schools said were at serious risk of not continuing their education due to financial burdens compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“When we talked about helping secure and support the next generation of Black physicians, we meant it literally,” Ezediaro said.
Valerie Montgomery Rice, president of Morehouse School of Medicine, said the gift reduced the average medical student debt by $100,000. She added that the gift helped her school significantly increase its fundraising.
“But our endowment and the size of it continued to be a problem, and we made that clear. And he heard us,” she said of Bloomberg and the latest donation.
Largest single donation previously made to an HBCU
In January, the Lilly Endowment donated $100 million to the United Negro College Fund for a joint endowment 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, chairman 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 gift to an HBCU of which she was aware, speaking ahead of Bloomberg Philanthropies’ announcement Tuesday.
Smith authored a 2021 report on the financial disparities between HBCUs and other higher education institutions, including the failure of many states to deliver on promises to fund historically Black land-grant schools. As a result, she said philanthropic giving has played a significant role in sustaining HBCUs, and noted that billionaire philanthropist and author MacKenzie Scott’s donations to HBCUs in 2020 and 2021 sparked a new chain reaction of support from other major donors.
“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 felt “relief” when she learned that the four medical schools had received donations. With the Supreme Court ruling striking down affirmative action last year and attacks on programs designed to support inclusion and equity in the schools, she anticipates the four schools will play an even bigger role in training and increasing the number of black doctors.
“This opportunity and this investment is not just about these four institutions, it’s about our country. It’s about the health of the nation,” she said.
Utibe Essien, a physician and assistant professor at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine who studies racial disparities in treatment, said increased investment and earlier educational support before high school and college would make a difference in the number of black students who decide to pursue medical school.
He also said he believes the Supreme Court’s decision on affirmative action and the backlash against efforts to correct historical discrimination and racial inequality are impacting students’ choices.
“It’s hard for some trainees who are considering going into this field to see some of the backlash and to continue down that path,” he said. “I think we’re going back into a spiral where, in the next five to 10 years, we’re going to see a worrying decline in the number of diverse people in our field.”
