Johns Hopkins Plays Dumb in Defense of DEI

Last month, Dr. Lisa Cooper, the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity, appeared on an episode of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health podcast to defend the DEI movement and its underlying ideology.

The episode, titled “The Concepts Behind The Language of Equity,” is framed as a response to – and a means of explaining – the “backlash” to DEI over the past few years. 

In it, Cooper attempts to spin DEI as simply a misunderstood and well-intentioned effort to help everyone; the language of “race” and “racism” are downplayed and in their place are references to nebulous concepts like “needs” and “backgrounds.”

“I think one thing that people oftentimes get confused about is that they think we are aiming for equality; which is a good thing, you know, to be fair and give everyone the same thing but, in order to achieve health equity, which is on the other side of the coin from health disparities, you have to give people what they need,” Cooper said. “And not everyone starts from the same place, or has the same needs.”

When placed in the context of race, this is just an indirect way of describing racial discrimination. If one is “giving” individuals different things based on their “needs,” and those needs are determined by race, then one is discriminating.

Cooper then tries to redefine “diversity” without its racial connotation.

“There’s this whole phrase that’s been created – DEI terminology –  that I guess is supposed to mean something that’s negative,” Cooper said. “But in reality, diversity basically just means having people from different backgrounds, and different ways of thinking, and different life experiences, and making sure we appreciate that, which I think is a basic American value.”

This is not what diversity means “in reality” – the term in practice refers to racially discriminatory practices and policies. Diversity scholarships reward certain racial groups over others; diversity in the student body entails discriminatory admissions policies.

In fact, Johns Hopkins’ own DEI initiatives discriminate against certain racial groups.

Do No Harm has shined a spotlight on Johns Hopkins before, running an advertising campaign exposing its discriminatory behavior after Dr. Sherita Hill Golden, the former chief diversity officer for Johns Hopkins Medicine, sent out a memo labeling white males and Christians as possessing innate “privilege.” Golden resigned shortly after. 

In January, we filed a civil rights complaint against Johns Hopkins after the university restricted access to certain programs to medical students from racial groups deemed to be “underrepresented” in medicine.

Cooper goes on to argue that the consequences of DEI are that “no one is left behind or disadvantaged.”

But DEI, by its very nature, disadvantages certain racial groups while favoring others.

At the end of the day, this spin doesn’t change the underlying reality that DEI in practice amounts to racial discrimination.