This seems rather “problematic” as the young people say these days.

Campus Reform reports.

Harvard med students demand diversity, but no more Asians please

Harvard Medical School (HMS) students styling themselves the “Racial Justice Coalition” are demanding that their next Dean be “committed to social justice both inside and outside our community.”

Several dozen medical and dental students, decked out in white lab coats, marched across campus last week to call attention to the cause, according to The Harvard Crimson, ending the procession at Massachusetts Hall, where they planned to present a petition to University President Drew Faust that they claimed boasts more than 300 signatures.

Jeffrey Flier, the current med school dean, plans to step down at the end of July to take a sabbatical before returning to teaching, and Faust is currently working with Provost Alan Garber to select his replacement.

Taking advantage of the opportunity presented by the protracted hiring process, the Racial Justice Coalition’s petition asks Faust and Garber to select a candidate who would use the position to promote diversity at the school.

“As a historian of the Civil War and American South, you can appreciate how the legacy of our institution has shaped its present condition,” the petition cajoles Faust, reminding her that the med school’s first attempt at integration in 1850 was abandoned after white students petitioned against sharing their classrooms with blacks.

The Coalition asserts that too little progress has been made in the ensuing 165 years, noting that just 5.9 percent of full-time faculty “are ‘underrepresented in medicine’,” 17 percent of full professors are women, and “none of the 15 Advisory Deans of HMS societies are underrepresented in medicine.”

They similarly lament the insufficient diversity of the student body, complaining that “while … 21.7 percent of HMS students are underrepresented in medicine,” just two of the 165 current first-year students are black females, and contending that “these numbers are not reflective of a nation in which African Americans, Hispanics, and American Indians comprise 32 percent of the population.”

According to The Boston Globe, Asians and Pacific Islanders are not mentioned in the petition because they are not considered “underrepresented” by the Association of American Medical Colleges. As of 2012, the two groups together constituted 18.9 percent of the HMS student body.