Commentary
Deleting Evidence During An Investigation Implicates Medical Schools
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What response to a federal civil rights investigation implicates a medical school with illegal discrimination and failure to properly review new programs for compliance with federal civil rights laws? Delete the evidence!
It seems the Charles Drew University (CDU) of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles, California is the latest educational institution to apply this tactic.
In July of 2023, Do No Harm filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) in response to the University’s operation of a discriminatory program. Specifically, CDU ran a scheme known as “EDGE-PA”, which offers “resources and support” only to “Black men” facing difficulty in getting accepted into a physician’s assistant program.
Included in the long list of “resources” offered exclusively to black men are mentorships, workshops, tutoring, scholarships, guest speakers, and much more.
In justifying the creation of the program, CDU professor and admissions chair Samuel Paik argued that “2% of the entire PA workforce are Black men. It’s no wonder why Black men have one of the highest morbidity and mortality rates in this country.”
This flawed line of logic attempts to connect a racial group’s representation in the medical workforce with that group’s average medical outcomes. This absurd theory is based on the conclusively disproven and archaic idea of racial concordance—e.g. that there is some medical benefit to seeing a physician of the same race. Do No Harm has repeatedly and decisively demonstrated the stunning lack of evidence to support racial concordance. In fact, overwhelming evidence suggests that racial concordance is nothing but a myth.
If that was not bad enough, CDU was not just looking for “black men” to participate in the EDGE-PA program—it was looking for black men who demonstrate, among other things, “a passion for social justice”. In other words, the program was not just racially discriminatory but also sought candidates who fit a very particular ideological mold.
Do No Harm was able to take screengrabs of the EDGE-PA website around the time the OCR complaint was filed. This turned out to be a worthwhile effort, as it seems CDU has deactivated the URL that linked to the EDGE-PA program. Today, that link directs the user to a “page can’t be found” screen.
CDU is not the first educational institution to try and delete the evidence after learning they were under a civil rights investigation. For example, in 2023, the University of Colorado School of Medicine (CUSOM) scrubbed its website following the submission of an OCR complaint by Do No Harm regarding discriminatory scholarships run by the school. Similarly, the University of Nebraska College of Medicine (UNCOM) quietly removed two discriminatory programs from its website following the initiation of an OCR investigation.
In other instances, colleges and universities have substantially altered the criteria for certain programs after an OCR investigation began but before it was concluded. Deleting or modifying evidence of discrimination is a typical response by schools after being notified they are under a federal civil rights investigation, and implicates the school with discrimination that they know is legally indefensible. It’s inexcusable and disappointing that medical schools routinely introduce illegal discriminatory programs without conducting a proper legal review for compliance with federal civil rights laws. Perhaps these schools didn’t expect their illegal discrimination to ever be challenged, and didn’t count on watchdog organizations like Do No Harm to come along and actively challenge their violations of Title VI and Title IX.
At the conclusion of 2023, Do No Harm had successfully prompted 40 federal civil rights investigations into various discriminatory programs, and multiple favorable outcomes were achieved as a result. So far in 2024, seven additional investigations have been opened. In cases when the offending material is removed or amended during the federal investigation, it’s an indication that the school has acknowledged its illegal discrimination and is taking corrective action to resolve the investigation.
In the case of CDU, the initial response to the federal investigation is a step in the right direction: any and all traces of the discriminatory EDGE-PA program have vanished. When the OCR concludes its investigation and holds CDU accountable for illegal discrimination, CDU will simply have to live with treating all aspiring physician assistants equally and not discriminating based on the color of their skin.
It is a sad day when a university resorts to blatantly discriminatory criteria reminiscent of 1950s prejudice in its programming. But, even if it is the result of a deletion during a federal investigation, it is a tremendous success when this type of programming is tossed into the trash bin.
