Commentary

Minorities Only! NIH, NIDDK, and APA Are Discriminating Against Race Again in LEAP Program

  • By Do No Harm Staff
  • March 15, 2024

The Leadership and Education Advancement Program (LEAP) for Diverse Scholars has a March 17th deadline for their fellowship program funded by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). Benefits include $2,000, mentorship, and the LEAP Boot Camp. The only catch? You can’t be white.

The application on the American Psychological Association (APA) website expressly asks for racial identification. Applicants “Must be of an underrepresented racial/ethnic background (e.g., African American/Black, Latinx, American Indian/Alaska Native, or Asian-American).”

Figure 1. LEAP for Diverse Scholars program from the APA.

NIDDK is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and is part of the U.S. government under the Department of Health and Human Services. Once again, the federal government is using taxpayer money to allot benefits based on race.

From the program’s landing page: “The Leadership and Education Advancement Program (LEAP) for Diverse Scholars is an evidence-informed mentoring and leadership development program for early career behavioral scientists from underrepresented racial and ethnic populations. These early career scientists perform research related to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) mission. LEAP prepares fellows to submit a high-quality National Institutes of Health or foundation grant application, supports their research and career development, and connects fellows to a network of senior researchers in a variety of academic settings and leadership positions.”

The APA lists current LEAP fellows on its website. Several current fellows are researching issues like the “challenges of navigating diverse spaces, including those most likely to trigger social identity threat,” and “constellations of multiply-minoritized statuses.”

Current discrimination is never the answer to past discrimination; and taxpayer money should never be used to further this twisted cause. What really matters is the quality candidates and scientific research, regardless of skin color, allowing the best research to lead to medical progress and treatments.

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