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

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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. 

Why ‘Gender-Affirming’ Language is So Dangerous for Children

Earlier this month, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued its landmark review of the evidence and ethics behind sex change interventions to treat gender dysphoria in children. 

The review, among other things, makes the compelling case that the terminology employed by advocates for child sex change interventions implicitly assumes the benefits of these interventions. “Gender-affirming care,” for instance, has a positive connotation, whereas terms like “bottom surgery” obscure the grisly nature of the actual procedure, removal of the testicles with degloving and inversion of the penis.

This language, the HHS report argues, precludes an honest assessment of the harms associated with child sex change interventions, and leads to a dangerous clinical protocol.

Take the insistence of using “assigned sex” rather than simply sex. Here’s what the HHS report authors write:

“Assigned sex at birth” is not a harmless euphemism. It suggests an arbitrary decision— not unlike “assigned seating”—rather than the observation of a characteristic present long before birth, namely the child’s sex. Moreover, if the phrase “assigned sex” were intended merely as a gentler way of referring to sex in conversations with patients and families, one would expect more direct language to be used in the specialty medical literature. In professional contexts, where clarity is paramount, euphemisms are generally avoided. Yet “assigned sex” is ubiquitous in clinical and academic publications. Not only that: use of such terminology is now mandated by certain medical journals. The American Psychological Association (APA) style guide, for example, classifies “birth sex” and “natal sex” as “disparaging terms” which problematically “imply that sex is an immutable characteristic.” As law professor Jessica Clarke observes, “‘Sex assigned at birth’ is not a euphemism for ‘biological sex’ but a critique of the very concept.”

The logic is simple: by using language that “affirms” the patient’s belief that they are the opposite sex while avoiding language that accurately reflects biological reality, physicians are already accepting the initial premises of “gender-affirming care.” These terms reinforce the idea that medical intervention is necessary to “affirm” the patient’s self-conception, which need not be grounded in any physical truth.

This practice is a linguistic sleight-of-hand that is antithetical to honest scientific inquiry and, therefore, the actual interests of the patient. Instead, it uses ideological shibboleths to enforce a particular course of medical intervention.

Apparently, not everyone got the HHS memo. 

A new article published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) argues that clinicians should use “affirming language” when treating patients experiencing gender distress, and that failing to do so can literally endanger their lives. These efforts include promoting “the use of pronoun-inclusive name tags, gender-neutral bathrooms, and ‘all are welcome’ signage”

“Affirming language is something all clinicians can use to honor patients’ experiences and protect their dignity,” the authors argue. “Every clinician can express empathy. No executive order can prevent a clinician from ensuring transgender patients seeking care feel heard and understood. Now more than ever, silence may be construed as support for antitransgender policies, stoking the fear patients are already experiencing.”

As it pertains to children, this is exactly backwards. 

Obscuring the actual nature of a child’s condition and using terms that implicitly assume medicalization and transition are the only acceptable courses of action is not “empathy” and does not “honor” patients’ experience.

Instead, using these terms constitutes a dereliction of duty and is incompatible with the foundational principles of medical ethics.

So-called “gender-affirming care” for minors is not supported by the weight of existing evidence. The Cass Review, an exhaustive review of gender medical services in the United Kingdom, found “remarkably weak evidence” to support the use of puberty blockers and hormone treatments for gender-distressed children. Reviews conducted in Finland and Sweden reached the same conclusion.

Additionally, many of the most frequently cited studies supporting so-called “gender-affirming care” for minors are rife with methodological limitations. Countries including the United Kingdom, Sweden, Brazil and Finland have each restricted minors’ access to these procedures.

Thus, using this coerced language that effectively begins the social transition and medicalization process is tacit encouragement of these dangerous and experimental procedures. 

The approach recommended by the authors of the JAMA commentary is reckless activism masquerading as empathy and inclusion.

Also, notice the phrasing: “silence may be construed as support for antitransgender policies.” Reminiscent of the “silence equals violence” refrain, the authors are effectively arguing that failure to affirmatively use “affirming language” is bigoted and even dangerous.

This seems like a statement from individuals more concerned with a political agenda than an honest and thorough examination of the evidence.

“Gender-affirming communication can preserve the sacredness of patient-clinician relationships and, although it does not replace the need for advocacy, this quiet intervention may save lives,” the authors continue, reinforcing this point.

In addition to these troubling statements, the authors of the JAMA commentary make several claims that reveal an agenda less concerned with scientific evidence and more concerned with ideology.

These include claims that there is “scientific evidence to the contrary” that there are two unchangeable biological sexes. Curiously, this claim is not supported by a citation pointing to the “scientific evidence” that would dispute this fact.

Moreover, the JAMA commentary makes the claim that the “empathy and validation of just one accepting health care professional can cut the risk of transgender youth suicide by more than 30%,” citing a 2023 study.

The method the cited study used to collect this information, however, was an anonymous online survey that did not collect identifying information, and participants were recruited through Facebook and Instagram ads “targeting those who interacted with LGBTQ-related content.” Additionally, “[y]outh who completed the survey were eligible to be entered into a drawing for a $50 gift card by providing their email addresses after being routed to a separate survey.” 

It’s plainly obvious that this recruitment method introduces significant selection bias, undermining the study’s validity.

Medicine should be grounded in scientific evidence, not ideology, and physicians should communicate with their patients in order to best meet their medical needs.

“Gender-affirming” language is hostile to this goal.

Ohio State Med School Closes DEI Office

The Ohio State University College of Medicine will be shuttering its DEI office on May 31, administrators announced in a statement last week.

The decision comes in response to a sweeping new law that effectively bans DEI in higher education, including medical schools.

“We will sunset the College of Medicine Office of Diversity and Inclusion (ODI) effective May 31,” the statement reads. “We will follow our usual practice of working with the impacted individuals to find other opportunities at Ohio State where possible. We remain committed to providing the resources our faculty, staff and learners need to be successful in alignment with our values and adhering to legal requirements.”

The statement was sent by John J. Werner, CEO of The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, Carol Bradford, Dean of The Ohio State University College of Medicine, and Sarah Sherer, Senior Associate Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer of the Wexner Medical Center.

Additionally, the medical school will “sunset the Vice Chair for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) roles within the [medical school], effective June 27.”

These actions are welcome news: in 2024, Do No Harm filed a civil rights complaint against the medical school for running a scholarship program that was limited to the “following racial or ethnic groups: Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, American Indian or Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander.”

And in 2023, Do No Harm released a report highlighting Ohio State’s numerous DEI initiatives and policies. This included evidence that the medical school’s curriculum is heavily geared toward indoctrinating students into DEI.

“We remain committed to ensuring that every member of our community is valued, heard and can thrive,” the statement concluded. “Our priority is to provide the resources our faculty, staff and learners need to be successful. How we go about that will need to change, but our commitment will not. We will continue to celebrate diverse backgrounds and ideas, and uphold academic freedom, which defines the excellence of American universities.”

Do No Harm Submits Public Comment Urging Reform of Health Agency Bureaucracy

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On Friday, Do No Harm submitted a public comment to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) stressing the importance of having an “accountable and responsive federal workforce” to carry out President Trump’s executive orders targeting DEI, racial discrimination, and gender ideology in the federal government.

Do No Harm submitted the comment in reference to a proposed rule, “Improving Performance, Accountability and Responsiveness in the Civil Service,” that seeks to increase accountability within the federal bureaucracy. 

Specifically, the rule permits agencies to “quickly remove employees from critical positions who engage in misconduct, perform poorly, or undermine the democratic process by intentionally subverting Presidential directives.”

Earlier this year, President Trump issued several executive orders that, among other things, cut off taxpayer funding for child sex change interventions, prevent the distribution of federal funds on the basis of race, and prohibit racial discrimination in hiring and recruiting.

Do No Harm’s comment explains how accountability and oversight of the federal bureaucracy’s efforts to carry out these orders is essential for the orders to have their intended effect.

“Do No Harm fears that its efforts to eliminate DEI, youth transgender treatments, and other identity-based practices will suffer if the executive orders—which accomplish exactly that—are not carried out by the appropriate federal officials, including civil servants,” the comment states. 

“For example, if the orders are not enforced and federal grant recipients are free to use taxpayer money to implement race-conscious policies under the guise of ‘DEI,’ Do No Harm’s members will continue to face discrimination in their applications for employment and educational opportunities,” the comment continues.

Additionally, the comment points out that during President Trump’s first term, federal bureaucrats resisted and undermined his agenda.

“By the end of the administration, many political appointees reported that some career staff used several tactics to impede, delay, and block administration policies they didn’t like,” the comment states. “Those tactics included ideologically motivated refusal of work assignments, leaking sensitive information, withholding information from political appointees, misrepresenting facts, delays and slow-walking, unacceptable work product, insubordination, and hiring ideologues into career positions.”

A rule enhancing accountability of the federal bureaucracy is essential to ensure that executive orders targeting DEI and gender ideology are faithfully carried out.

For these reasons, Do No Harm supports the proposed rule.

Mental Health Agency Runs Discriminatory Scholarship Program

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For over 50 years, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has operated the Minority Fellowship Program (MFP), an initiative that “aims to reduce health disparities and improve behavioral health care outcomes for racial and ethnic populations.”

To accomplish this, SAMHSA awards grants to eight grantee organizations who in turn administer the program through individualized curricula, typically involving awarding grants and providing opportunities to graduate students and residents in the field of mental health.

For instance, the grantee organization American Psychological Association provides “financial assistance,” “expert training,” “dedicated mentoring” and “networking opportunities” to the lucky students selected.

However, the program appears to have in mind members of certain racial groups as its desired applicants.

According to a fact sheet on the program, “African American, Alaskan Native, American Indian, Asian American, Hispanic/Latino, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander students are especially encouraged to apply.”

And according to a report by the American Psychiatric Association, one of the “grantee” organizations that works with SAMHSA to operate the MFP, just one of the 29 members of the 2024 cohort for the Resident Fellowship Program, an initiative administered through the MFP, was white.

The Council on Social Work Education, another grantee organization, states that the “MFP targets but is not limited to racial/ethnic minority individuals pursuing a doctoral degree in social work.”

But racial discrimination need not be explicitly exclusionary; prioritizing the recruitment of members of certain racial groups for valuable opportunities like the MFP is still discrimination.

In 2025, there is no tenable justification for such racially-targeted initiatives. 

This program should be welcoming to all, and taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize racial discrimination.

House Passes Budget Bill Cutting Off Medicaid Funding for Child Sex Changes

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This morning, the House of Representatives passed The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, a sweeping spending bill that included a provision restricting Medicaid funding for sex change interventions.

Do No Harm worked with Representative Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) on developing a provision to be added to the spending bill that would prevent Medicaid, CHIP, and Affordable Care Act funds from being used for child sex-change interventions. This provision echoes Rep. Crenshaw’s Do No Harm in Medicaid Act.

“We applaud Representative Crenshaw and the House for their efforts to protect children from unscientific sex-change procedures,” said Kurt Miceli, MD, Medical Director at Do No Harm. “Americans overwhelmingly oppose these harmful procedures for children and the American taxpayer should not be forced to pay for them.”

The provision amends Section 1903(i) of the Social Security Act, cutting off federal funding for “medically unnecessary procedures” that include child sex change interventions.

Do No Harm provided the Congressional Budget Office with crucial information that enabled it to estimate the cost of these procedures, thereby helping the provision make its way into the spending bill.

The existing evidence does not support the use of sex change interventions to treat gender-distressed children. 

For instance, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a report finding that the “gender-affirming” approach to care of gender-distressed children “lacked sufficient scientific and ethical justification.”

The Cass Review, an exhaustive review of gender medical services in the United Kingdom, found “remarkably weak evidence” to support the use of puberty blockers and hormone treatments for gender-distressed children.

Additionally, many of the most frequently-cited studies supporting so-called “gender-affirming care” for minors are rife with methodological errors. Countries including the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Finland have each restricted minors’ access to these procedures.

Do No Harm Statement on Murder of Israeli Embassy Staffers in Washington, D.C.

RICHMOND, VA: May 22, 2025 – Today, following the murder of two Israeli embassy staffers last night in Washington, D.C., Do No Harm released the following statement: 

Stanley Goldfarb, MD, Chairman of Do No Harm:

“Racial discrimination sows division and poisons Americans against one another. It has infiltrated our society and institutions at every level. When allowed to fester, this cancer metastasizes from concerning unequal treatment of our fellow man to tragic violence like we saw at the Capital Jewish Museum last night. Our hearts go out to the families of the two Israeli Embassy staffers who were murdered in this antisemitic attack. May their memory be a blessing.”  

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. 

Do No Harm Medical Director Kurt Miceli, MD, Testifies Before Congress

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Today, Do No Harm Medical Director Kurt Miceli, MD, testified before the House Subcommittee on Education and Workforce Development at a hearing titled “Restoring Excellence: The Case Against DEI.”

In his opening remarks, Dr. Miceli explained how DEI has come to infect medical education and the medical field as a whole, pointing to the main institutional culprits behind the rise of DEI ideology: medical associations, medical schools, accreditors, and certifying bodies.

Next, in an exchange with Representative Burgess Owens (R-UT), Dr. Miceli debunked the oft-repeated notion that racial concordance – in which patients are treated by physicians of the same race – improves health outcomes.

“We look at this question of racial concordance – the idea that black patients do better with black doctors or white patients do better with white doctors – one of the things we understand is that four out of five systematic reviews that have looked at that question find there is no difference in outcome by racial concordance,” Dr. Miceli said.

Dr. Miceli continued by examining the role of medical education accreditors in propagating DEI, while also noting some good news: the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) recently announced that it would be suspending enforcement of two key “diversity” requirements, following an executive order by President Trump targeting accreditors for injecting DEI into medical education.

“It’s essential that the standards are based on merit, and only merit, so that we make sure we have exceptional physicians that are out there, and nothing else,” he said.

Click here to watch the full hearing.

Click here to read Dr. Miceli’s full testimony.

FTC Takes Aim at Child Transgender Industry’s ‘Deceptive’ Practices

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) plans to hold a workshop to review statements made by doctors and medical providers surrounding the efficacy of child sex change interventions, according to documents obtained by The Daily Wire.

The workshop, titled “The Big Lie: The Dangers of Gender-Affirming Care for Minors,” is intended to build on President Trump’s January executive order targeting these procedures, according to The Daily Wire. 

“Every available and legal means to protect children from harmful transgender procedures should be taken,” said Stanley Goldfarb, MD, Chairman of Do No Harm. “The FTC is right to recognize that medical institutions captured by gender ideology are deceiving concerned parents into allowing their children to undergo these dangerous interventions. We applaud the FTC and the Trump Administration for taking this important step towards protecting children.”

Additionally, the workshop’s proposed guest list features several experts including Do No Harm Senior Fellow Dr. Miriam Grossman.

“Under the Federal Trade Commission Act, the FTC is provided broad authority to protect consumers from unfair and deceptive trade acts and practices,” a memo on the workshop reads, according to The Daily Wire. “There is now considerable reason to believe that the doctors and medical providers pushing [gender-affirming care] on minors are knowingly deceiving parents by exaggerating [gender-affirming care’s] ‘benefits’ and downplaying its harmful side effects.”

While it’s unclear exactly which entities the FTC is targeting, medical associations and doctors routinely make misleading statements and downplay the harms of sex change interventions for children.

For instance, the FTC’s actions follow on the heels of a letter by several state attorneys general warning the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) that its statements supporting gender medical interventions for children are “deceptive” and may violate states’ consumer protection laws. That letter specifically targeted the AAP’s statements that characterized puberty blockers as “reversible.”

Puberty blockers can cause diminished bone density in minors, with research showing that they negatively affect “bone mineral density, especially at the lumbar spine, which is only partially restored after sex steroid administration.” 

Moreover, artificially preventing a child from going through puberty is inherently experimental, and there are long-term risks such as cognitive impairment, greater risk of infertility, and permanently impaired adult sexual function.

Additionally, nearly all children put on puberty blockers go on to take cross-sex hormones. And the risks are even more pronounced for cross-sex hormones; women taking testosterone see a 3.5 increase in incidence of heart attacks compared to women not taking testosterone, while men taking estrogen see a 46-fold increase in invasive breast cancer compared to men not taking estrogen.

The memo goes on to note that, “[w]hile several politicized medical organizations that promote [gender-affirming care] for minors as the best standard of medical care might claim a ‘consensus,’ there is in truth no widespread medical consensus as to whether [gender-affirming care] is the correct course of action for gender dysphoric youth.”

This statement gestures at the paucity of evidence supporting child sex change interventions. Several major reviews of the evidence, including the United Kingdom’s Cass Review and a recent report by the Department of Health and Human Services, concluded that there is very weak evidence to support the use of sex change interventions to treat minors with gender dysphoria.

Additionally, major tentpole studies cited to support so-called “gender-affirming care” are often rife with methodological errors.

Do No Harm Supports the EDUCATE Act Introduced by Rep. Greg Murphy and Sen. John Kennedy

RICHMOND, VA; May 20, 2025 – Today, Do No Harm announced support for the EDUCATE Act introduced by Congressman Greg Murphy (R-NC) and Senator John Kennedy (R-LA). If passed, the bill would cut off federal funding to medical schools’ diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs.

The EDUCATE Act would defund programs that compel students or faculty to racially discriminate. It would also block funding to medical schools that have DEI departments or functionally equivalent offices. The bill would require accreditation agencies to remove DEI requirements while allowing instruction about race-related health issues.

“Do No Harm applauds Congressman Murphy and Senator Kennedy for their relentless work to end harmful DEI practices and to restore integrity to American medical schools,” said Stanley Goldfarb, MD, Chairman at Do No Harm. “For too long, accrediting bodies and medical colleges have prioritized identity politics over merit and expertise – putting patients’ health at serious risk. President Trump’s Administration has taken critical steps to dismantle these political activists’ grip on medical education, even causing some accreditors and schools to suspend their discriminatory practices. But the EDUCATE Act could enshrine the President’s actions into law, thereby eradicating DEI programs from medical education permanently.”

“American medical schools are the best in the world and should remain free from discrimination, politicization and acceptance of anything other than excellence,” said Congressman Greg Murphy, MD. “The EDUCATE Act bans race-based mandates at medical schools, protects the First Amendment and civil rights of students, and promotes objective, science-based medicine. Excluding individuals based on appearance or beliefs in the name of diversity is wrong and debases the integrity of the profession. Doctors must be taught to treat patients with the highest quality of care regardless of who they are.  This includes dealing with other medical professionals who may not look like they do. I have dedicated my life to serving others as a physician and will not stand for discrimination in our nation’s institutions of medicine.”

“Medical schools should be in the business of training our future doctors to save lives—not indoctrinating students on anti-American DEI ideology. The EDUCATE Act would make sure the government isn’t wasting your money on woke struggle sessions and blatant discrimination in medical schools,” said Senator John Kennedy.

Click here to read the text of the EDUCATE Act.

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.

The AAMC Should Not Sacrifice Merit for Ideology

In 2020, the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) unveiled a new test, the PREview exam, aimed at measuring skills and competencies related to professionalism for students applying to medical schools. As of the 2024-2025 application cycle, nine medical schools had made submission of PREview scores mandatory. 

The AAMC’s justification for the exam is that medical schools should consider factors other than an applicant’s academic achievement (e.g. MCAT scores and GPA) when making admissions decisions, echoing the “holistic” review practice that the AAMC has promoted.

“The PREview exam provides medical schools with a more complete view of each applicant by assessing skills such as resilience and adaptability, service orientation, ethical responsibility to self and others, empathy and compassion, cultural awareness, cultural humility, and teamwork and collaboration, among others,” the AAMC states.

In a vacuum, the idea that these skills are relevant to the practice of medicine isn’t particularly uncontroversial.

But a cursory understanding of the AAMC’s institutional position on medical school admissions should provoke considerable skepticism as to the purpose of the PREview exam.

The AAMC has long been a staunch advocate for DEI and race-conscious admissions, urging the Supreme Court to uphold affirmative action in 2023. Do No Harm’s landmark 2024 report further exposed how the AAMC has injected DEI into nearly every facet of medical education. 

Indeed, as the AAMC itself admits, one of the purposes of the PREview exam is to promote “inclusivity”; the exam was even assessed by “experts” in DEI.

“In discussing the exam with our DEI constituents, the sentiment has always been that it would help level the playing field for applicants,” said David Acosta, MD, AAMC chief diversity and inclusion officer, in a 2022 statement.

It’s hard to think of what “level the playing field” could mean or entail except the devaluing of traditional metrics of merit. Indicators of academic achievement and competency such as GPA and MCAT scores already do level the playing field.

These ideological positions are hinted at in public materials concerning the PREview exam.

For instance, one question included in a practice version of the exam presents a scenario in which a male student exhibits sexist behavior.

You and a group of medical students are shadowing a surgeon as part of a clinical experience. The surgeon mentions that they need a volunteer to assist with an operation. You overhear a male student ask the female students if he can volunteer because he believes most women are not interested in surgery anyway. After the clinical experience, one of your classmates complains to you about the male student’s comment.

Another question implicitly extols the virtues of diversity, with a scenario reinforcing the notion that medical schools are not sufficiently considering different racial groups.

You are taking a course that requires you to conduct interviews with actors portraying patients. Several weeks into your course, you realize that every patient you have interviewed is White. When you suggest to the course instructor that the actors lack diversity, your course instructor responds that the patients have been successful for years and there is no need to make changes.

It’s apparent that the PREview exam is just another way for the AAMC to devalue traditional metrics of merit and competence in favor of admissions methods that allow medical schools to pursue the DEI agenda.

Out of reckless ideological zeal, the AAMC continues to champion factors less relevant to the actual practice of medicine.

Clinical practice is not a game, and decisions as to who medical schools admit should not be taken lightly.

The AAMC should take its position more seriously, and abandon its ideological commitment to DEI; the future of medical education very much depends on it.

Mental Health Org Runs Scholarship for ‘BIPOC’ Clinicians

The Multi-Service Eating Disorders Association (MEDA) is running a scholarship program directed toward “BIPOC” students looking to work in the treatment of eating disorders.

The “Memorial Scholarship Fund for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC)” provides “training scholarships” to Masters and Doctoral level students pursuing a degree in “social work, psychology, or mental health counseling or nutrition and who have a special interest in working with eating disorder recovery,” according to the program description.

The program, started in 2021, awards students “$500-$5,000 per year” to be used for tuition, housing, travel, books, and other living expenses. 

As the program description states, “BIPOC” is an acronym commonly used to refer to individuals who are black, Indigenous, and/or other “persons of color.”

The program’s eligibility criteria do not explicitly include membership of a certain racial group, according to an archived version of the application, but do make clear that the program is intended to increase racial diversity and that the program is intended to support “BIPOC” students.

Additionally, the application requires applicants to enter their race.

“MEDA is committed to increasing the number of trained BIPOC social workers and mental health counselors, so we will be better able to identify and treat all individuals struggling with eating disorders,” the application states.

The suggestion implicit in this sentence is that diversity among social workers and mental health professionals will improve health outcomes for patients; this notion is not supported by the existing evidence.

 “We are committed to increasing the racial and ethnic diversity in the field of eating disorders by providing tangible financial support for BIPOC students,” the application continues.

Here, the discriminatory undertones are more evident. Why not all students? Why just “BIPOC” students?

If MEDA wants to maximize its positive impact, it should reward the most capable students with its scholarship funds, and not the students who happen to be of certain racial backgrounds.

Do No Harm Publishes New Report Exposing How a Debunked Racial Concordance Study Infiltrated Medicine  

RICHMOND, VA; May 14, 2025 – Today, Do No Harm published a new report exposing how a flawed study pushing racial concordance spread across medicine. In the report, Anatomy of a Myth: How a Debunked Racial Concordance Study Infiltrated Every Corner of the Medical Field, Do No Harm analyzes how the debunked Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) study titled “Physician–patient racial concordance and disparities in birthing mortality for newborns,” was used by media outlets, academics, and medical associations to justify racially discriminatory programs. 

“Racial concordance is a pernicious, dangerous ideology wholly unsupported by peer-reviewed scientific evidence,” said Stanley Goldfarb, MD, Chairman of Do No Harm. “Debunking the flawed studies used to justify discriminatory initiatives, such as this study from PNAS, is essential to Do No Harm’s mission. Medical professionals, organizations, and policymakers must engage in more skepticism of any politically motivated research used to call for racially discriminatory policies. Racial concordance has no place in medicine.” 

More from the report:

  • The PNAS study claimed that survival rate of black infants improves when treated by black physicians. However, researchers failed to control for the effect of very low birth weight on infant mortality. 
  • When researchers at the Manhattan Institute attempted to replicate the study with the same data, while applying a control for very low birth weight, they found the racial concordance effect disappeared. 
  • In academia, the PNAS study has been cited 786 times, including 64 citations in 2025. 
  • Medical associations and adjacent organizations reference the PNAS study extensively, including the Association of American Medical Colleges in an amicus brief to the United States Supreme Court.  
  • News outlets, including CNN, NPR, USA Today, and Science News, spread the study’s findings.  

Click here to read the full report. 

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. 

HHS Reminds Medical Schools: Racial Discrimination is Against the Law

Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) sent a Dear Colleague Letter to medical schools across the country, warning them that race-conscious admissions and other forms of racial discrimination are illegal under federal law.

The letter explains that medical schools across the country have discriminated against “white, Jewish, and Asian students” through the implementation of policies aimed at promoting DEI or ameliorating “systemic racism.” These policies violate the Supreme Court’s 2023 holding in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, in which the Court ruled that race-conscious admissions are unconstitutional.

The letter cites an article published by The Washington Free Beacon detailing how the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA admitted unqualified applicants based on race.

HHS’s concern is well-warranted; just days after HHS sent out the letter, Do No Harm filed a class action lawsuit against UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine for discriminating against white and Asian students in its admissions process. 

The lawsuit is on behalf of a white Do No Harm member unfairly rejected by UCLA despite stellar academic performance; the complaint even cited the same Free Beacon article.

Furthermore, the HHS letter explains how medical schools often use mechanisms to circumvent the prohibition on race-conscious admissions by requesting application materials that enable admissions officials to discern the race of the applicant.

This practice, often employed in so-called “holistic” review strategies, enables the medical school to cite these “extracurricular” factors while practicing an indirect form of racial discrimination.

That, too, is illegal, as explicitly stated so by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts in the 2023 decision holding that race-conscious admissions are unconstitutional: “[U]niversities may not simply establish through application essays or other means the regime we hold unlawful today.”

“[M]edical institutions may not use application materials—such as personal statements, writing samples, or extracurricular activities—as a means to infer a student’s race and then apply differential treatment based on that inference,” the letter states. “Additionally, certain DEI programs may confer advantages or impose burdens based on generalizations associated with racial identity, rather than evaluating individuals on their own merits.”

The HHS letter goes on to warn medical schools that their policies must align with existing civil rights law, that the use of race or racial proxies in admissions is illegal, and that they lose out on federal funding if racial discrimination persists.

“All medical schools are advised to: (1) ensure that all policies, procedures, and practices are fully consistent with applicable federal civil rights laws; (2) discontinue the use of any criteria, tools, or processes that serve as substitutes for race or are intended to advance race-based decision-making; and (3) cease reliance on third-party contractors, clearinghouses, or data aggregators that engage in prohibited uses of race,” the letter stated. 

“Medical schools found to be out of compliance with federal civil rights law may, consistent with applicable law, be subject to investigation and measures to secure compliance which may, if unsuccessful, affect continued eligibility for federal funding,” the letter continued.

This is an encouraging sign, and Do No Harm applauds HHS for taking action. Based on racial admissions data, it’s clear that many medical schools are still practicing race-conscious admissions, despite the Supreme Court’s ruling.

Ending racial discrimination in the admissions process will require stringent enforcement and aggressive oversight. This is a huge step in the right direction.

The ACGME Caves, Suspends Enforcement of Diversity Requirements for Accreditation

This is an enormous victory for medical education: on a Friday evening last week, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) announced that it would be suspending enforcement of two key “diversity” requirements.

The decision comes hot on the heels of an executive order by President Trump targeting accreditors for injecting DEI into medical education and singling out the ACGME by name for its DEI requirements.

The ACGME, which is the accrediting body for medical residency programs, explicitly cited “state or federal laws” in its decision to suspend enforcement.

“The ACGME has heard significant concerns from multiple constituents in several states and from federal Sponsoring Institutions about their ability to comply with some of the ACGME requirements addressing diversity in light of state or federal laws,” Debra F. Weinstein, MD, President and Chief Executive Officer of the ACGME, and George E. Thibault, MD, Chair of the ACGME Board of Directors, said in a statement.

“Given this uncertainty surrounding the legality of Common Program Requirement I.C. and Institutional Requirement III.B.8., as well as related specialty/subspecialty-specific requirements, the Executive Committee of the ACGME Board of Directors is suspending enforcement of these requirements and will discuss this action with the ACGME Board at its June 2025 meeting,” they continued. “This reflects the ACGME Board’s responsibility for approval of accreditation requirements.”

The referenced requirements are, effectively, diversity hiring mandates that require residency programs and their sponsoring institutions (e.g. medical schools) to have recruiting and retention policies that aim to boost diversity.

The “Common Program Requirement I.C.” refers to the ACGME requirement that accredited residency programs must “engage in practices that focus on mission-driven, ongoing, systematic recruitment and retention of a diverse and inclusive workforce of residents, fellows (if present), faculty members, senior administrative GME staff members, and other relevant members of its academic community.”

The “Institutional Requirement III.B.8” applies the same diversity requirement to “sponsoring institutions” of residency programs.

It’s hard to overstate the significance of this action. Residency programs and their sponsoring institutions will no longer be forced to engage in diversity hiring practices (which, in practice, is effectively racial discrimination) as a condition of their accreditation.

As we’ve seen, medical schools subject to accreditation requirements that they pursue diversity objectives are keen to pass the buck and blame their DEI initiatives on accreditors.

For residency programs specifically, the ACGME’s decision removes all plausible deniability. 

Now, the next step is for the Liaison Committee on Medical Education to follow suit, and suspend its diversity requirements.

UCSF Demands Scholarship Winners Pledge Allegiance to DEI

The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is offering a $2,000 stipend, networking opportunities, and hands-on experience to visiting fourth-year medical students through its Visiting Elective Scholarship program (VESP).

The program is open to applicants for the departments of Emergency Medicine, Orthopedics, Radiology, Surgery, and Urology.

But there’s a catch.

The program’s application criteria states that it is open to “[f]ourth-year U.S. medical students who are either disadvantaged, have demonstrated a commitment to working with traditionally marginalized and disenfranchised populations, OR have demonstrated a commitment to UCSF’s PRIDE values.”

In fact, per the Orthopedic Surgery VESP application, applicants must submit a personal statement expressing their “commitment to working with diverse communities” and their involvement in DEI initiatives to proceed to the next phase of the application process.

It’s worth noting that the UC system just recently ended its practice of requiring diversity statements for faculty applicants. Students, apparently, are not so lucky.

Figure 1. An excerpt of the UCSF VESP application.

Additionally, applicants are prompted with questions asking them whether they consider themselves to be “disadvantaged” and asking them their racial and ethnic background.

Figure 2. An excerpt of the UCSF VESP application.
Figure 3. An excerpt of the UCSF VESP application.

It’s not clear why one’s racial or ethnic background would be germane to their ability to practice medicine.

But, at least as it pertains to the Department of Orthopedic Surgery, race appears to be a major concern for UCSF.

According to a quote on the UCSF website from C. Benjamin Ma, MD, the chair of the UCSF Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, DEI is essential to the department.

“Diversity, equity, and inclusion are top strategic priorities for this department with the explicit goals of expanding access, increasing diversity, and actively promoting inclusion in our professional community and among the populations we serve,” the quote reads. “To achieve these goals, we have employed a strategy of educating, incorporating change into processes, and infusing this thinking into all parts of the academic, clinical, and outreach mission.” 

A video advertising the department’s DEI philosophy likewise stressed the importance of having physicians be of a common ethnic background as their patients, echoing the debunked notion that racial concordance improves health outcomes.

Unfortunately, this behavior is par for the course for UCSF.

UCSF’s Fresno campus previously maintained a racially discriminatory scholarship for visiting obstetrics students, only changing the discriminatory criteria following a civil rights complaint from Do No Harm.

At UCSF, DEI is truly baked into the institutional DNA.

Do No Harm Files Class Action Lawsuit Against UCLA Medical School for Racial Discrimination in Admissions

RICHMOND, VA; May 8, 2025 – Today, Do No Harm filed a class action lawsuit against the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) for continuing to practice race-conscious admissions. Geffen, under the guise of “holistic admissions,” has ignored federal law by discriminating against applicants on the basis of race.

“Do No Harm is fighting for all the students who have been racially discriminated against by UCLA under the guise of political progress,” said Stanley Goldfarb, MD, Chairman of Do No Harm. “All medical schools must abide by the law of the land and prioritize merit, not immutable characteristics, in admissions.”

Case Facts:

  • Geffen’s dean of admissions has both publicly and privately said she uses race as a factor in making admission decisions.
  • A white Do No Harm member was unfairly rejected by Geffen, despite stellar academic achievements.
  • Whistleblower accounts describe how the Geffen admissions committee “routinely gives black and Latino applicants a pass for subpar metrics,” and that “whites and Asians need near perfect scores to even be considered.”
  • White and Asian applicants are severely underrepresented as matriculants due to this racial discrimination.
  • In March 2025, following whistleblower accounts describing racial discrimination in admissions, the Department of Health and Human Services opened an investigation into Geffen.
  • In April 2025, a whistleblower said that UCLA circulated a memo requiring admissions committee members to consider race when picking students to serve as admissions officers.

On May 8, 2025, Do No Harm filed a class action lawsuit against UCLA, alleging its admissions policies violate the Fourteenth Amendment, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and California civil rights law.

This lawsuit will help ensure that universities across the country think twice before trying to discriminate on the basis of race.

Click here to read the lawsuit.

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.

Indiana Enacts Law Cracking Down on DEI

Huge news in the Hoosier State.

This week, Indiana Governor Mike Braun signed into law sweeping legislation, SB 289, that takes aim at a number of DEI initiatives in institutions of higher education and other publicly-funded entities.

The law specifically targets “unlawful discrimination” in education, public employment, and licensure, as well as DEI committees in public universities.

Next, the law prohibits public educational institutions or employers from taking actions based on an individual’s “personal characteristic[s]” such as their race, religion, color, sex, national origin, or ancestry. 

Additionally, the law changes the eligibility criteria of state-funded “minority scholarships” to make clear that applicants should be residents in an “underserved county” and agree to teach in an “underserved county,” rather than be a “minority.”

Moreover, the law prohibits a public employer from requiring training asserting that “a person with a certain personal characteristic: (1) is inherently superior or inferior to a person with a different personal characteristic; (2) should be blamed for actions committed in the past; or (3) has a moral character that is determined by a personal characteristic of the person.”

The law likewise prohibits licensing boards from requiring individuals to affirm these statements as a condition of licensure. As Do No Harm has documented, licensing boards such as state medical boards are often major vectors for injecting DEI into the medical profession.

This is a step in the right direction for Indiana.