Arkansas Ditches Racial Quotas Following Do No Harm Lawsuit

Last month, Arkansas enacted a law to remove race and gender quotas from state boards and commissions.

The law was prompted, in part, by Do No Harm’s federal lawsuit challenging an Arkansas law that required racial quotas for certain government bodies.

As a result of the bill becoming law, Do No Harm voluntarily dismissed the lawsuit against Arkansas on Thursday. 

Previously, Arkansas’s law had imposed racial quotas on gubernatorial appointments to state licensing boards; for instance, requiring at least one member of the five-person Occupational Therapy Examining Committee to be a racial minority.

Do No Harm and the Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism had filed the lawsuit on behalf of two Arkansas natives who met the committee’s requirements but were excluded because they were not racial minorities.

This is a major victory, and Do No Harm applauds Arkansas lawmakers and Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders for taking action against racial discrimination.

Medical boards like the Occupational Therapy Examining Committee should be made up of the most qualified candidates to ensure that expertise is prioritized, and that the individuals in charge of critical decisions are the most deserving.

Racial quotas subvert merit and replace it with ideology.

With any luck, Minnesota will follow Arkansas’s lead.

Do No Harm had filed a lawsuit against the Minnesota Department of Health over the department advisory council’s discriminatory membership criteria.

Minnesota law requires the department’s Health Equity Advisory and Leadership Council to include representatives of certain racial and ethnic groups.