Ohio State Med School Quietly Walks Back Discriminatory Program After Do No Harm Complaint

The Ohio State University College of Medicine has quietly scrubbed language from a description of a research program that explicitly discriminated against certain racial groups. The university made this change sometime after Do No Harm filed a federal civil rights complaint with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights alleging that the program violated Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

Ohio State’s Discovery Postbaccalaureate Research Education Program (PREP) program provides postbaccalaureate students with a 12-month paid experience in biomedical research, giving them valuable opportunities to make them more attractive Ph.D. candidates.

The program is part of a series of National Institutes for Health (NIH) initiatives aimed at building a “diverse pool” of students who will pursue biomedical doctoral degrees.

Unsurprisingly, to achieve this mission, the Ohio State program’s eligibility criteria stated that applicants are eligible if they are from the “following racial or ethnic groups: Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, American Indian or Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander.”

If you were a white or Asian applicant, you were out of luck.

The program explicitly cited the NIH’s definition of “underrepresented groups in biomedical research” when describing its desired applicants, and stated that its eligibility criteria was required to receive NIH support. The NIH defines underrepresented groups as “Blacks or African Americans, Hispanics or Latinos, American Indians or Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and other Pacific Islanders,” the same racial groups to whom Ohio State restricted the program’s eligibility.

Do No Harm Senior Fellow Mark J. Perry filed a federal civil rights complaint against Ohio State in October 2022, alleging that the eligibility criteria was unlawful racial discrimination in violation of Title VI

Then, at some point in late 2023, Ohio State changed its description of the Discovery PREP program and removed all racial eligibility criteria.

In its place, the description of the Discovery PREP program now reads that the program is open to “[a]pplicants that have encountered obstacles to gaining sufficient experience and the skills necessary for admission into a research-centric PhD graduate program in their chosen field of study.”

The Office for Civil Rights closed Do No Harm’s complaint on July 30 by referring it to the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), saying that “HHS is the federal agency that oversees this NIH program.” 

However, at this point, the Title VI violation has been corrected by removing the race-based eligibility criteria for the Discovery PREP program. Therefore, the complaint has already been resolved in Do No Harm’s favor and no further action is required.

“Ohio State and NIH changed their eligibility requirements sometime last year to remove all race-based criteria while our complaint was being evaluated, either in response to legal challenges like ours or to avoid legal challenges in the future. Regardless of what exactly motivated that change, Do No Harm can take credit for bringing awareness to race-based discrimination in medicine through our more than 150 Title VI complaints,” said Perry. “The favorable outcome at Ohio State is one more victory for Do No Harm’s ongoing legal challenges to stop U.S. medical schools from illegally discriminating based on race, color, or national origin in violation of Title VI.” 

Do No Harm applauds this resolution and we expect many more favorable outcomes in the future as the Office for Civil Rights continues to process and investigate our complaints. 

Beyond being unlawful and immoral, practicing racial discrimination significantly compromises medical schools’ primary mission to properly educate graduate students free from divisive racial ideology. The best way to recruit, train, and develop talented physicians and scientists is to prioritize merit and not race.

U.S. universities and medical schools should follow suit and end their illegal practices of prioritizing race in their admissions process and scholarship awards. Medical schools should be on notice that Do No Harm remains steadfast and vigilant in our efforts to legally challenge any race-based discrimination that comes to our attention. 
If you are aware of any illegal race-based or sex-based discrimination in U.S. medical education, you can file an anonymous tip here.