Press Release

Do No Harm Report Exposes Public Universities for DEI Programs Despite State Bans

  • By Do No Harm Staff
  • May 28, 2025

RICHMOND, VA; May 28, 2025 – Today, Do No Harm released a new report: Zombie DEI: When Ideology Circumvents State Legislation – and Comes Back To Life Again And Again. The report exposes how medical schools and healthcare education programs in states that restrict DEI like Tennessee and Florida have attempted to circumvent those DEI bans, such as by rebranding their divisive programs. Do No Harm highlights how medical schools have continued to pursue discriminatory and divisive initiatives under the guise of “health equity,” and continued to recruit and teach based on DEI principles like “implicit bias.” 

“Exposing how medical schools resurrect divisive DEI policies at every opportunity is an important part of improving the quality of medical care,” said Stanley Goldfarb, MD, Chairman of Do No Harm. “Rebranding DEI as ‘health equity’ or other such terms is a clear effort to skirt state law in the name of woke ideology. Med schools should drop their DEI agenda. Instead, they should focus on merit as the basis for recruitment and admission decisions, and lawmakers should target schools that fail to comply with state laws.”

The report exposes medical schools and healthcare education programs in seven states that have restricted DEI in higher education: Tennessee, Florida, Texas, Indiana, Kansas, Iowa, and Utah. 

The full report can be found here. 

From the Report: 

  • The University of Tennessee Health Science Center has renamed its Office of Inclusion, Equity, and Diversity to the Office of Access and Compliance. Still, it has continued to publicize ongoing DEI initiatives.
  • The University of Florida had a continuing medical education “Health Equity Day” as recently as February 2025. That course’s objectives included recognizing “structural racism,” and how “structural discrimination” affects clinical practice. 
  • University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (UT Southwestern) renamed its “Diversity & Inclusion” office to the “Office of Student Empowerment & Engagement.” UT Southwestern maintains a “Health Equity Scholars Program,” with “training in implicit bias mitigation.” 
  • Indiana University School of Medicine (IUSM) maintains its “Health Equity, Advocacy and Leadership,” competency as part of its curriculum, where students learn “to recognize the importance of historical, cultural, social and structural contexts of medicine and their relationship to health equity.”
  • The University of Utah continues to post its “Equity, Diversity, Inclusion” statement publicly. The statement reads: “It is imperative for the Office of Student Affairs Assessment & Analytics to prioritize equity, diversity, and inclusiveness.” 

Do No Harm, established in April 2022, has rapidly gained recognition and made significant strides in its mission to safeguard healthcare from ideological threats. With 17,000 members, including doctors, nurses, physicians, and concerned citizens across all 50 states and 14 countries, DNH has achieved over 10,000 media hits in top-tier publications and garnered widespread attention through numerous broadcast news appearances.