Commentary
Duke Health Ditches DEI-Infused Anti-Racism Pledge
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Like many healthcare institutions in the wake of the 2020 “racial reckoning,” the Duke University Health System (Duke Health) adopted a pledge that it advertised as a commitment to stand against racism.
That doesn’t sound so bad, right?
Well, upon closer inspection, the pledge was rife with commitments that forced healthcare to take a backseat to ideology.
These included the following items:
“We recognize our own implicit biases and actively seek, listen, and respond to feedback from others as part of our personal growth and development.”
“We are guided by science and know that excellent research and health care cannot happen without equity. To deliver the most effective care, we must ensure equitable access to treatments and care, so that every individual can achieve optimal health.”
“We commit to educating ourselves and the next generations of health care, science, and technology professionals to acknowledge, counter, and ultimately eliminate racism and racial inequities.”
“We use our expertise to study the impact of racial injustice on health outcomes. We reduce health disparities by actively engaging members of diverse populations to guide and lead our research.”
As you may have noticed, some of this is at odds with core principles of healthcare ethics.
Targeting “members of diverse populations” to lead research, rather than simply the most qualified individuals regardless of their background, is contrary to the pursuit of merit and excellence.
And instrumentalizing healthcare as a tool to “eliminate racism and racial inequities” subordinates the role of medical care to larger ideological goals. Healthcare professionals need to focus on providing the best possible care to patients, not turn their occupation into a vehicle for social justice activism.
As recently as April 2025, Duke Health maintained the pledge on its website; however, the pledge has since been removed. Its webpage now redirects to a pledge focusing on dignity, compassion, and humanity.
It’s not clear exactly when the change occurred; the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal in July praised Duke for removing the pledge.
This is welcome news, of course, and the timing is more than a little interesting: back in March, Do No Harm submitted a federal civil rights complaint against Duke Health for racially discriminatory practices in its admissions and scholarship decisions.
For instance, Duke Health’s diversity plan explicitly called for adapting admissions processes to increase acceptance of underrepresented minority applicants, even pairing prospective minority candidates with current minority students during the admissions process.
What’s more, in late July, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Secretary of Education Linda McMahon demanded Duke end its discriminatory practices and implement measures to ensure merit is prioritized.
Here’s hoping that Duke follows through and not only removes all traces of the divisive, discriminatory ideology of DEI from its policies and practices, but commits to focusing on healthcare and healthcare alone.
