Leaked Presentation Reveals How NIH Forces DEI Agenda on Medical Institutions

The Cleveland Clinic is instructing faculty members to police their “microaggressions” in response to grant funding requirements from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

In a presentation obtained by Do No Harm titled “Building a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive culture: Addressing Microaggressions,” the Cleveland Clinic laid out how faculty should respond to microaggressions, which it defines as “everyday actions” that harm “marginalized groups.” The course instructs faculty to document ongoing microaggressions, an example of which is “a woman clutch[ing] her purse when a black man enters the elevator,” and to report such behavior to their supervisors.

As its title might suggest, the course is part of the clinic’s larger effort to promote diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) within its organizational culture.

But more telling is how the course instructs prospective applicants for NIH grant funding to navigate the agency’s woke mandates.

The course specifically outlines how to respond to the NIH’s Plan for Enhancing Diverse Perspectives (PEDP) requirement that mandates applicants for certain grants include a document outlining how their research will advance diversity and inclusivity, e.g. through including researchers from “historically underrepresented” backgrounds.

The course recommends grant applicants “enhance training and PEDP sections” of their grant applications, while also providing sample text to use that states applicants will participate in a “Microaggression Awareness Training.”

In other words, the NIH, by conditioning its grants on applicants’ submission to DEI, is incentivizing research institutions to implement these trainings.

The Cleveland Clinic’s presentation sheds light on how the Biden administration’s federal funding requirements encourage universities to push radical woke ideology on their faculty.

For instance, the NIH recommends grant applicants include members of “underrepresented racial and ethnic groups” in their projects, as well as engage with “minority-serving” institutions, to meet the PEDP requirement.

This sort of racial favoritism obviously unfairly disadvantages academics based on immutable characteristics, but also harms the field of science more broadly. Grant applicants should be considered for the merits of their research and ideas, not for their commitment to the Biden administration’s preferred ideology.

If the NIH wishes to mandate these requirements, it should provide evidence demonstrating why researchers who are black or of another minority group can perform their job better than other ethnic groups.

While the Cleveland Clinic’s course is perhaps a more anodyne example of this dynamic, it demonstrates how the NIH’s mandates encourage institutions to devote their resources to anti-scientific endeavors.

The Cleveland Clinic’s course is listed under a faculty development program that is administered through the clinic’s Lerner College of Medicine in conjunction with Case Western Reserve University, and is open to 900 faculty members; the aforementioned “Microaggression Awareness Training” is put on by the organization’s Lerner Research Institute.

The presentation also refers to several NIH grants and programs, including the BRAIN Initiative, that explicitly advance the DEI agenda.

“The BRAIN Initiative is firmly committed to fostering diversity, inclusivity, and accessibility in the research community,” the NIH’s description of the initiative reads. “BRAIN investigators should strive to compose teams richly diverse in perspectives, backgrounds, and academic disciplines, and provide full opportunity and participation to individuals and groups underrepresented in neuroscience.”

To cultivate quality research and advance the fields of science and medicine as best as possible, the NIH should ditch these grant requirements.

Setting up bureaucratic hoops that require grant applicants to pay homage to the DEI agenda may serve the Biden administration’s political purposes, but does nothing to advance humanity’s collective knowledge.

Do No Harm Calls on EEOC to Investigate Racially Discriminatory Internship Program

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RICHMOND, VA; July 18, 2024 – Do No Harm has requested that the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) investigate an internship program offered by the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine (ARM) for racial discrimination.  

ARM, a medical organization that advocates for engineered cell therapies and genetic medicines, offered the GROW Internship Program, designed to provide undergraduate and graduate students with early-career paid opportunities in the regenerative medicine sector. However, the lucrative 12-week internship is open to only those students who “identify as Black/African American.” 

“To flagrantly discriminate against applicants because of their race is reprehensible and unlawful — the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine (ARM) should be investigated and the program shut down,” said Do No Harm Board Chair Dr. Stanley Goldfarb. “The opportunity to engage in the sciences should be open to the best and the brightest and never be based on the color of one’s skin. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission needs to open an investigation into ARM immediately.” 

Do No Harm has called for the EEOC to open an investigation into ARM as the parameters they have set in place violate Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act: “an unlawful employment practice for an employer to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race.” 

Click here to read the full complaint:

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 more than 8,900 members, including doctors, nurses, physicians, and concerned citizens across all 50 states and in 14 countries, DNH has achieved more than 7,800 media hits in top-tier publications and garnered widespread attention through numerous broadcast news appearances. 

Virginia Chooses Science Over Politics When It Comes to Maternal Health

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Maternal deaths are a tragedy that some bad actors try to exploit for political gain. Thankfully, Virginia is charting a different course. An executive order just issued by Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) offers promise for identifying and remedying real issues in maternal health without resorting to unscientific race-baiting. 

Executive Order 32 reestablishes the Task Force on Maternal Health Data and Quality Measures. The task force is charged with collecting and monitoring maternal health data and issuing recommendations to identify and remedy deficits in the provision of care.  

The executive order comes months after Gov. Youngkin vetoed Senate Bill 35, which would have required unscientific implicit bias training for medical professionals who work with expecting or recent mothers. The message is clear: Virginia won’t abide woke nonsense that only creates division and resentment, and instead favors an initiative that holds real promise for helping mothers and moms-to-be. 

Unfortunately, when it comes to maternal health, race-baiting claptrap is often the norm over reason and science. In North Carolina, for example, the Maternal Mortality Review Committee determines whether “discrimination” is a factor in each maternal death, and specifically whether a “birthing person” was discriminated against due to “group, class, or category.” These are in fact impossible determinations, and simply hunches masquerading as science. More importantly, the process is a Trojan Horse for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), and the North Carolina Committee unsurprisingly recommends a suite of DEI initiatives to remedy all the supposed discrimination occurring against Tar Heel mothers.   

Each maternal death is a profound tragedy. Hopefully, through reason, depoliticized inquiry, and genuine passion for improving maternal health, Virginia can illuminate a path toward reform without devolving into tired and anti-intellectual orthodoxies.

DEI Invades the Bleeding Edge of the Medical Industry

An event aimed at elevating a healthcare business model is promoting sponsorships and scholarships specifically intended to advance the radical left-wing ideology of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).

The September event, called the 2024 Hint Summit, is hosted by Hint Health, a software company operating in the direct primary care (DPC) space, and will feature clinicians and industry leaders. DPC is a growing business model in the healthcare industry in which patients pay regular fees directly to their physician or practice in exchange for a wide array of medical services.

Yet, while Hint describes the summit as DPC’s “premier innovation event of the year,” the summit seems to have full-throatedly embraced regressive identity politics. 

For instance, the summit advertises “DEI Scholarships” on the event’s main page.

“Hint Summit has a limited number of scholarships available for residents and under-represented groups,” the scholarship listing reads.

While it’s unclear if the scholarships explicitly exclude certain applicants based on their race, the image advertising the scholarships includes two black physicians and one Asian physician.

Moreover, Hint is soliciting “Diversity, Equity & Inclusion” sponsors to support the event, according to a prospectus on Hint’s website. In exchange for publicity at the event, these sponsors will pay $1,500 for a member of an “underrepresented” group to attend the summit.

“In an effort to promote inclusivity, we are inviting members from underrepresented groups who would benefit from attending the 2024 Hint Summit and are looking for sponsors to contribute to cover their cost to attend,” the prospectus reads.

The summit also encourages members of “historically underrepresented” groups, such as “people of color” and LGBTQ+ individuals, to attend the event.

Regardless of their intentions, a medical company should not be rewarding people simply based on their skin color. Organizations in the medical field should strive to recruit and promote the most talented individuals possible, rather than awarding scholarships to groups they deem “underrepresented.” 

This unfairly puts otherwise deserving individuals at a disadvantage due to their immutable characteristics.

Despite its professed embrace of divisive concepts like DEI, the event’s goal is to help make the DPC model more “mainstream.”

“[W]e will bring together DPC Clinicians of all shapes and sizes, industry leaders, stakeholders and ecosystem partners to create a path towards furthering the Direct Primary Care landscape and bringing DPC across the threshold of mainstream healthcare,” the event page states.

Jettisoning regressive ideas like DEI and abandoning practices such as offering preferential treatment to individuals based on their race would go a long way to achieving that end.

Unfortunately, the medical field’s embrace of DEI is well-documented. 

Do No Harm has repeatedly exposed major medical associations’ attempts to advance the DEI agenda.

It seems even the more niche corners of the industry are no exception.

Do No Harm Calls on NIH to Fund Research Into Harms of Puberty Blockers, Shutter DEI Office

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Do No Harm Director of Research Ian Kingsbury submitted comments on July 15, 2024 to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) recommending the agency prioritize funding research into the negative effects of medical transitions on children.

NIH’s Sexual & Gender Minority Research Office (SGMRO) had solicited comments for its “NIH-Wide Strategic Plan for Sexual and Gender Minority Health Research for Fiscal Years 2026–2030,” an initiative to inform how the agency invested in research on “sexual and gender minorities” such as lesbian, gay and transgender individuals. Kingsbury urged the NIH to fund research on “the effects of exogenous hormones or puberty blockers on the developing brain,” as well as to approach the field of pediatric gender medicine with general skepticism.

“Several European nations (e.g. United Kingdom, Finland, Sweden) that have conducted systematic evidence reviews have concluded that the risks of medical transition outweigh the benefits for youths and adolescents,” Kingsbury noted. “These countries have severely curbed access to puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones.”

Kingsbury also recommended the agency fund research into social contagion, a theory of gender dysphoria which argues that the increase in individuals seeking to medically transition is partly due to the spread of gender ideology.

Kingsbury further urged the NIH to purge the politicized, left-wing elements of its agency and partner with organizations that are skeptical of pediatric gender medicine, including Do No Harm, Genspect, and the Society for Evidence Based Gender Medicine.

“The NIH Office of Equity, Diversion, and Inclusion should be shuttered,” Kingsbury wrote. “Time and again, we observe that DEI officials act as political commissars who enforce progressive orthodoxy and punish those who stray from it. Rigorous and impactful research should not be constrained by the possibility that it might hurt somebody’s feelings.”

There is no strong evidence to support medically transitioning children. The Cass Report, an exhaustive review of gender medicine for children in the United Kingdom published earlier this year, found that there is “remarkably weak evidence” to support the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to treat children with gender dysphoria.

However, the Biden administration has repeatedly advocated for the medical transition of children, and has opposed states’ attempts to limit minor access to puberty blockers and hormones.

In 2022, President Joe Biden issued an executive order directing the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to expand access to so-called “gender-affirming care.”

“For transgender and nonbinary children and adolescents, early gender-affirming care is crucial to overall health and well-being as it allows the child or adolescent to focus on social transitions and can increase their confidence while navigating the healthcare system,” the HHS stated in 2022.

Moreover, Assistant Secretary of Health Rachel Levine pressured the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) to “remove recommended minimum ages for medical transition treatments” from its published guidelines for gender medicine, according to unsealed court documents.

Kingsbury and Do No Harm are calling on the NIH to maintain its focus on treating illness, and to approach pediatric gender medicine with well-warranted skepticism.

Microaggression mayhem: Oregon’s proposed microaggression rule could cost doctors their medical licenses

What does the term “unprofessional conduct” bring to mind? Fraud? Sexual harassment? Actions that put others in danger?

All of these could be considered misconduct, both within and outside of the medical community.

But the Oregon Medical Board is seeking to elevate one more category of behavior to the same level of severity as these offenses, warranting the same levels of mitigation and intervention: microaggressions.

According to a new rule proposed by the Oregon Medical Board, doctors that engage in “unfair treatment characterized by implicit and explicit bias, including microaggressions,” could have their medical license revoked.

Even worse, doctors who simply fail to report supposed “microaggressions” within ten business days could face the same penalty.

The Board’s proposed rule was formally filed back in April, with the public comment period closing the following month. Now, the Board could permanently adopt this rule as soon as July 11th.

If passed, Oregon’s new microaggression crackdown would not only stifle free speech, but also severely hamper physicians’ ability to be candid in the delivery of medical diagnoses or care. As Do No Harm Founder and Board Chair Dr. Stanley Goldfarb noted, “Physicians need to be able to speak frankly and honestly with their patients…If they believe that they can be sanctioned because they deliver bad news or make a comment that the patient misinterprets, this will lead to a chilling effect on speech and ultimately lead to deterioration in the patient-physician relationship.”

Unfortunately, that doesn’t appear to stop the Oregon Medical Board’s intent towards pursuing this radical proposal. In fact, according to the Washington Free Beacon, the proposed rule is drawn from a commitment contained in the 2023 “DEI Action Plan” from the Board. Interestingly, all links to the DEI Action Plan on the Board’s website are no longer functional. Nor is there any obvious posting of any public comments received relating to the proposed rule.

While the Board focuses its energies on the entirely manufactured crisis of microaggressions, it is apparently turning a blind eye towards the real cases of legitimate unprofessional medical conduct that are occurring in Oregon.

For example, a local Portland news station published an investigative documentary that examined cases where “doctors were allowed to continue practicing medicine even after being credibly accused of serious misconduct, including sexual abuse or gross negligence leading to the death of a patient.” According to the investigative piece, some of the most egregious violations of medical trust occurred after the Oregon Medical Board endorsed the continued licensure of problematic doctors.

Yet instead of treating the investigative report as an opportunity to reflect on these concerning practices, the Board sued the news station over the disclosure of public records.

So, according to the Oregon Medical Board, microaggressions are to be treated with the highest level of severity, while blatant medical malpractice is of such little concern that the records should be shielded from the public’s view with litigation, if necessary.

Unfortunately, this is the perverse line of logic that the woke takeover of modern medicine has facilitated: legitimate issues are pushed aside to make room for more rules and restrictions to appease the fringe pro-DEI crowd.

It is unknown what the true adverse impact of this rule will be, if passed. However, it is entirely possible that highly skilled medical providers will simply be unable to tolerate such an intrusion into their free speech and the doctor-patient relationship. As a result, it will be unsurprising if these doctors look to states that allow them to practice with the candor that their profession requires.

At the July 11th meeting, the Oregon Medical Board will be faced with a simple decision: either uphold the freedom that doctors need in order to practice effectively, or permit the entire medical establishment in Oregon to be completely overtaken by the wishes of woke radicals. The choice could not be clearer.

Medical licensing & regulation org takes its politics to North Carolina

DEI is not a foreign concept to the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB). The organization, which is responsible for many of the licensing and regulatory processes for medical professionals across the country, has repeatedly endorsed woke ideas under the guise of medical “advocacy”.

For example, in 2021, the FSMB issued a statement wholly affirming its allegiance to DEI as part of an effort to address “systemic racism and inequity”. The statement highlighted the formation of a Task Force on Health Equity and Medical Regulation and a symposium on Health Equity and Medical Regulation. And in 2023, the FSMB published a final report of its Workgroup on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Medical Regulation in Patient Care. The report called for, among other reforms, creating a DEI-based Continuing Medical Education, which would astonishingly require physicians to engage in implicit bias training and evaluations on their adherence to DEI as part of their continuing education requirements.

Put simply, the FSMB is as woke as it gets.

Perhaps it is of no surprise that the FMSB has pushed its commitment to DEI down to the state level. As part of an effort to investigate this, Do No Harm issued a series of public records requests to select states in response to a survey put out by the FSMB. The survey included nine questions solely dedicated to DEI—roughly one-fifth of the entire survey. These questions include:

  • “What priority level does your board assign to diversity, equity and inclusion in the ways in which it regulates the profession of medicine?”
  • “Within the past 12 months, has your board made any public or internal statements about diversity, equity and inclusion?”
  • And more.

A response received by Do No Harm from the North Carolina Medical Board indicated that they ranked DEI as a “10” on a scale of “0 to 10” in terms of importance. That’s a higher score than legitimate medical policies and issues, such as telemedicine, interstate medical licensure compact, and more. North Carolina’s responses also indicated it has published both internal and external statements related to DEI and places a high priority on DEI in the way it regulates medicine.

Figure 1. From the NC 2022 FSMB State Board Survey, p. 3.

Figure 2. From the NC 2022 FSMB State Board Survey, p. 11.

North Carolina’s enthusiastic responses to questions relating to DEI are echoed in its own Board’s actions, such as the creation of a special working group dedicated to “diversity and inclusion”.

North Carolina has been a critical battleground in the fight against the influence of DEI in medicine. For example, in 2023, the North Carolina Legislature passed a bill that protected the free speech of medical educators and prohibited implicit bias training. Although the bill was vetoed by Governor Roy Cooper, the veto was successfully overridden by the Legislature.

This legislation was critical, as North Carolina’s institutions of higher education have come under fire time and time again for embracing divisive concepts inspired by DEI. Now, based on the results of the FSMB survey, its state medical board has all-but-admitted that DEI plays a crucial role in the Board’s policies and procedures.

(Of course, this is all somewhat ironic, given that the North Carolina Medical Board’s members are both majority white and majority male—demonstrating a lack of willingness to embody the DEI positions that it claims to embrace.)

North Carolina is just one of many states that has undoubtedly signed on to the FSMB’s controversial policies. Unsurprisingly, the high degree of importance the state’s medical authorities place on DEI has resulted in numerous instances of questionable practices at its medical colleges and universities. Indeed, there is no evidence at all that DEI benefits any patients. The role of the state medical board is to guarantee the highest quality of healthcare for the community. The DEI agenda does nothing for that goal. The sooner other state medical boards demonstrate transparency about how they’re embracing DEI, the quicker physicians and other medical professionals can push back against them.

DEI panel: Do No Harm is a threat, CRT popularity is declining

Panel exposes their own racism and error-filled assertions

On May 30, the American Medical Association (AMA) sponsored a panel event with National Health Equity, “Advancing Health Equity Through Resistance: A State of the Union on Threats and Opportunities.”

AMA is one of four Founding Collaborators who developed the National Health Equity Grand Rounds series. This particular event was hosted to push back against Do No Harm and others who are challenging DEI requirements in medicine, and who present as “threats” to the DEI agenda.

Do No Harm is the Biggest Threat to DEI

When asked of the biggest threat to advancing Critical Race Theory (CRT) and anti-racism in medicine, panelist Khalil Gibran Muhammad, PhD specifically named Do No Harm and its founder Dr. Stanley Goldfarb. As an academic, Muhammad claims he and other anti-racists are “more sophisticated in understanding how these things work.”

But while the Harvard Kennedy School professor incorrectly discounts Dr. Goldfarb’s level of engagement on the issues, (note: you can access dozens of Do No Harm’s Reports and Research here), it is ironic that his project, Institutional Anti-Racism and Accountability Project (IRA), is only a “qualitative study based on semi-structured interviews.” He also admits that “looking at applied research in this field (DEI) is a fairly new thing.” (27:59)

Scientific inquiry and quantitative data don’t harmonize with the DEI agenda. Alternately, as medical professionals at Do No Harm, science is our specialty. We will always fight for facts to triumph over political propaganda.

CRT is the Least Popular Message

Ian Haney López, MA, MPA, JD, who teaches seminars on Critical Race Theory at Berkeley Law admitted his allegiance: “I am a critical race theorist.” (15:07). The tenets of Critical Race Theory are that: racism is normal and ordinary and not the exception, that racism is inherent in every structure in America, and that people of color are continually discriminated against and treated unfairly in both the public and private spheres including law, medicine, and education.

Interestingly enough, Mr. López said according to his own data and large national studies, the least popular political message among communities of color is the narrative of structural racism—exactly what CRT teaches. (35:42).

“The least popular message, political message, among communities of color (is) ‘There’s a lot of structural racism (and) we need to make this country live up to its ideals.’”

López goes on to say that the CRT theories promoting victim mentality aren’t working either.

“And a lot of people in communities of color hear a story in which they have to accept that they are hated and that their children’s lives are truncated because they’re hated by the dominant group in society. And they don’t want to hear that message,” López said. (37:51)

López doesn’t understand the reason they don’t want to hear that message, is because the message is flat-out untrue. (Or possibly, he thinks the majority just lacks the aforementioned sophistication to understand these issues).

CRT isn’t working because it’s untrue. Understandably, no individual of any race wants to be taught that they are hated and being held down by powerful invisible forces. Yet this is the bedrock of CRT.

López is a career-critical race theorist. Academics like him and these DEI panelists have invested so much time and energy into the CRT religion, and are now discovering (but have the inability to accept) that this wasn’t the hill to die on. But instead of abandoning CRT and anti-racism as a means to keep power, they are doubling down. López sounds like he’s stuck in the sunk cost fallacy.

So what does he propose, as a career-critical race theorist? To keep believing in CRT but to change the communication strategy. He’ll continue believing and teaching falsehoods but manipulate it in a way to deceive the general public.

The single most popular political message López says, is about building power across racial lines to take care of our families. (37:12). So, naturally he recommends using this talking point instead of structural racism to gain more followers, blind to the real CRT agenda. The arrogance and hypocrisy are astounding. We invite Mr. López to abandon CRT as a life mission and join our cause in treating everyone as an individual. Science says that when new data is available, it changes our approach. Your data has proven CRT doesn’t work, and it isn’t accepted. It has done more harm in society than positive change.

DEI Panel’s Own Racism

The ironic part about anti-racism is the fact that it is itself, racist. López defines racism as “white over non-white,” (15:39), but true racism is the belief that each race has distinct and intrinsic attributes based solely on their skin color. Racism also asserts (like Ibram X, Kendi does) that the only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination.

The panel often exposed their own racism and biases during the event. Michelle Morse, MD, MPH, is the Chief Medical Officer at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. At the event, Morse told hospital communications and PR staff to refuse to answer questions about health equity projects to “right-wing” media, instructing staff to say, “I’m not responding to this white supremacist news outlet.” (32:49).

Defaming an entire news organization as a “white supremacist” is a flagrant strawman argument, only exposing the accuser (Morse) of bias herself. At the introduction of the event, the moderator asked the audience to come with “an open heart and an open mind.” Yet, when asked questions by a free press (protected by the 1st amendment), Morse’s modus operandi is to shut down discussion and hurl fallacious insults.

Morse also advocates for black patients to be placed higher on kidney transplant lists, if the previously standard algorithms of the eGFR test didn’t indicate kidney disease.

Multiple studies and data prove that serum creatinine concentrations are higher in black individuals than those of any other race, which informs the standards and algorithms for the eGFR. Morse implied these clinical algorithms didn’t fit the DEI agenda, so they intended to “change the algorithms.” (34:55).

Morse says, “Now there are ways to use race to advance racial equity, but many of these clinical algorithms unfortunately are not using race in that way.” (34:47). It’s incongruous that she is happy to use race to her advantage when it suits the DEI agenda, but not when the data opposes that agenda.

Most terrifyingly, the efforts to change these algorithms was largely “led by students and trainees,” and not by research. Morse also admitted “well we can’t wait” for research to lead the change in algorithms. (35:02). The change in science she promotes was not led by rigorous, systematic study, but by DEI ideology.

Additionally, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is proposing incentives for hospitals to create health equity plans and prioritize transplants for certain races above others.

Dr. Goldfarb responded to this CMS proposal, stating, “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it, especially in medicine. The Supreme Court has made clear that CMS may not enlist private actors to discriminate against patients based on race, even to reduce disparities.” He advocates patient-education as another solution rather than race-based discrimination.

So yes, we’re proud that the work Do No Harm has achieved is a threat to CRT and anti-racism. We are emboldened further to not let DEI’s erroneous, racist, political agenda take over medicine and medical education. And we’re proud to fight against the intellectual elites who have tried to commandeer the narrative and force their harmful political agenda. We pledged to “first, do no harm.”

What is Texas Tech hiding about their compliance with the state’s new DEI law?

A radical left-wing ideology has contaminated medical education in the United States, threatening to undermine American healthcare—even in conservative West Texas.

Consider a mandatory lecture at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC). Students are taught Critical Race Theory and intersectionality—ideas with roots in Marxism—and that America is governed by “white supremacy” and “systemic racism.” They are warned about “microaggressions” and told to “reject colorblindness.” Astonishingly, this lecture is delivered in West Texas, where the population—and patients—are nearly 90% white.

The lecture praised a book asserting, “The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination [against whites].” Additionally, it discouraged using racial information in diagnoses, even when beneficial for patient care. One student reported, “It felt more like a political indoctrination session than a medical lecture.”

Figure 1. From the course titled “Racial Justice” at TTUHSC.

With higher education succumbing to radical woke ideology, Texas lawmakers acted. Last year, Governor Abbott signed Texas Senate Bill 17 (SB 17), one of the nation’s strictest anti-DEI laws, effective January 1st. Texas’s public universities, including TTUHSC, are mandated to eliminate DEI.

However, public statements by university presidents in Texas suggest an intent to subvert the new law. One tactic: rebranding DEI offices while maintaining the same functions. Another: dissolving DEI offices but “camouflaging” personnel in other departments.

Under SB 17, these tactics are forbidden: DEI must be eliminated in both spirit and letter.

A new legal battle has emerged over TTU’s massive DEI program. A 2020 archive boasted that the Division of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DDEI) had 14 units and numerous collaborations, making it one of TTU’s largest entities.

Following SB 17’s passage, these units were dismantled. However, a local paper reported a curious development: a new Office of Campus Access and Engagement emerged, with no one fired. TTU’s President stated, “We’re gonna move certain support services into certain areas that align with really who they served and what they did.” The new office’s website claims, “Since SB 17 was passed, the range of available support resources remains comparable.”

Is TTU subverting the new law?

A non-profit oversight organization filed a Texas Public Information Act request with TTU, asking for their compliance plan and the fate of their DEI employees. TTU responded with 49 pages of redacted text, citing “attorney-client privilege.”

What are they hiding?

Alarmed, Texas State Senator Brandon Creighton sent TTU a stern letter demanding compliance updates. TTU officials reassured him that their Office of Audit Services is auditing compliance with SB17 for all System components. TTUHSC officials echoed this statement.

Audit themselves? Who believes this?

Texas Tech is a taxpayer-funded institution. The public deserves transparent disclosure of relevant documents, not vague reassurances.

DEI initiatives may be legally banned at Texas universities, but the battle against the ideological takeover of medicine is far from over. Enforcement challenges persist, and medical schools face pressure from accreditation bodies and federal law to implement DEI-like policies. The fight for excellence over activism in medicine has only just begun.

It’s time for the public and policymakers to demand real accountability. Texas Tech must comply with SB 17 in both letter and spirit or face the consequences. The integrity of medical education—and the future of patient care—depends on it.

Report Uncovered Depth of University of Oklahoma College of Medicine’s DEI Efforts Prior to Executive Action

The University of Oklahoma’s College of Medicine (OUCOM) had demonstrated its commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion policies in recent years, earning recognition by the Association of American Medical Colleges for being among the top medical schools in the country for implementing DEI practices in its education. Indeed, the College’s promotion and expansion of these practices – alongside other Oklahoma institutions – prompted a January 2023 letter from Superintendent Ryan Walters, requesting the institutions account for “every dollar” spent on implementing these divisive policies. After discovering the extensive nature of DEI policies within these institutions, Gov. Stitt followed up Walters’ letter with an executive order in December 2023, banning these practices at publicly funded institutions in the Sooner State.

As state leaders were rightfully examining the scope and nature of DEI policies in its academic institutions, Do No Harm filed a FOIA request in 2023 to obtain the data and results of a 2022 survey, measuring performance against DEI metrics, conducted by the OUCOM.

The so-called Diversity, Inclusion, Culture, and Equity (DICE) survey from the College of Medicine was part of a larger effort by the AAMC to pressure medical schools across the country to embrace controversial policies that discriminate against faculty and students on the basis of race, ethnicity, and other identity-based characteristics. A report by the AAMC touted its successful efforts to push the vast majority of medical schools to adopt radical identity politics as official school policies. Indeed, the AAMC provided a ranking of institutions surveyed, with the OUCOM scoring 77 percent – placing it slightly below the highest tier for participating medical schools.

Despite the College of Medicine’s failure to satisfy our FOIA request by supplying Do No Harm with the full documentation of the survey’s measurements and results, the limited pdf document provided by the College revealed the full extent to which the institution had shifted its priorities towards radical DEI policies.

Here are some of the practices that the College of Medicine had embraced:

  • The College of Medicine has taken action to modify communications, branding, icons, or displays that may be perceived as non-inclusive. Under this policy, the College of Medicine intentionally adopted a set of standards based on diversity, equity, and inclusion that may conflict with the history and tradition of the institution.
  • The College of Medicine adopted potentially racially discriminatory admissions practices under the guise of “holistic admissions practices.” Under this policy, the College of Medicine set different academic standards for candidates based on immutable “diversity” characteristics like race and ethnicity. These practices could have been used to systematically discriminate against more qualified applicants who do not belong to a set of identities that were deemed by university bureaucrats to need unequal, favorable treatment by the institution.
  • The College of Medicine’s tenure and promotion policies specifically reward faculty scholarship and service on diversity, equity, and inclusion topics. Under this policy, faculty were encouraged to prioritize DEI-related instruction for the advancement of their careers.
  • The College of Medicine provides financial scholarships to students based on racially discriminatory criteria. Under this policy, Oklahoma’s taxpayers were funding programs that disadvantage people of certain racial and ethnic backgrounds—namely, nearly eight out of ten in-state residents for whom the university was intended to serve.

The pervasiveness of the College of Medicine’s DEI policies rightfully drew concern from policymakers and the medical community in Oklahoma.

The College’s relatively high score also indicates that it had made significant strides in expanding its DEI footprint. Most of the areas in which the College received low marks were on data collection; in areas of governance, mission, DEI policies, institutional history, communication, and faculty promotion it received near perfect scores.

In a section of the survey in which the dean of the college responded to the results, the dean outlined a plan to improve future years’ scores by adopting a strategic plan based on the areas identified for improvement. A major component of that future plan included dedicated faculty and full-time staff devoted to the implementation of DEI programs.

While the DICE survey shows how far OUCOM had gone to indulge DEI, it also provides a roadmap those committed to reversing the direction of the College’s policies – particularly in light of Gov. Stitt’s actions – and formally root out these dangerously misguided policies.

This Prominent Children’s Hospital Teaches 8-Year-Olds About ‘Gender-Blending’

America’s leading hospitals are eschewing scientific ethics for gender unicorns & top surgeries.

If you are unfamiliar with the ‘Gender Unicorn,’ an animal analogy about how sex comes from genitalia and gender identity comes solely from the mind, your children may be able to explain it to you. Some healthcare providers, including the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), preach radical gender ideology to elementary schoolers.

CHOP, one of the oldest hospitals in America, has more than a deeply unfortunate (but perhaps fitting) acronym. It has demonstrated a deep commitment to expose its patients of all ages to unproven gender ideology, rejecting science and basic medical ethics in the process.

Figure 1: The Gender Unicorn, as illustrated by Trans Student Educational Resources, included in CHOP’s training materials.
Hear it Straight from the Unicorn’s Mouth

This is not a simple rumor. According to documents Do No Harm obtained through FOIA request, the training materials prepared for children’s sex education are defined by radical anti-scientific gender ideology. A presentation given to a local public elementary school, titled “Supporting Transgender and Gender Expansive Students,” contains a clear outline of the most radical aspects of modern gender theory, served up in whimsical fonts and colors for the hospital’s future patients. The program’s goal, as per CHOP’s guidelines, is to forward a ‘gender-inclusive’ environment for students.

The programming begins by encouraging children to discuss “messages you received about

gender while growing up from your parents/family,” before asserting that messages regarding gender are often “influenced by social norms.” At no point is any mention made of the biological roots of human sexuality–the term ‘biological sex’ is only referenced as a vague framework for the much more in-depth discussion of gender identity and expression. Included in this in-depth discussion are what the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia considers to be the three categories of gender expression: masculine, feminine, and fluid/creative. All of this is being told to children who have yet to complete (or in many cases even begin) puberty. 

Figure 2: CHOP training materials.

Further, CHOP’s training hardly comes from unbiased sources.  One of the CHOP instructors teaching Pennsylvania elementary-age children about gender is Samantha King, who, after getting degrees in human sexuality and social work, manages CHOP’s “Gender and Sexuality Development Program.”

The other is Nadeen Herring. She describes herself publicly as an “unlearner; unapologetic mother and loud-mouth for Blaq trans youth” and has written copiously about the unlearning journey connected with parenting her own transgender child. She dedicates her career to ensuring medical providers “take trans realities seriously,” including getting medical personnel to avoid the use of pronouns with young patients. This makes sense, given her goal of being “a creative ambient, deeply-impassioned word massager.”

Each instructor holds a master’s degree in education. Neither appear to have any scientific credentials.

Misconceptions and Hypotheticals

The presentation calls out ideas they deem ‘misconceptions,’ such as the concept of peer pressure playing a role in child development. Apparently, peer pressure is simply a non-factor among children about to enter puberty. Despite this assertion, CHOP has an entire webpage dedicated to the role of peers in behavioral development, conveniently when the subject might not raise fair questions about peer pressure, social contagion, and gender identity.

Herring and King offer off-the-shelf rebuttals to common comments like, “You can’t be a girl, you’re a boy.” What is the response from CHOP, a leading medical institution? “It is not okay to tell someone they aren’t who they say they are. Since Sam knows herself best, if Sam says she is a girl then that is true.”

Figure 3: CHOP training materials.

This sort of behavior from an otherwise serious healthcare provider is the new normal at CHOP, as it is among many providers and medical institutions. As reported by the Daily Caller in April 2023, the hospital scrubbed information off its website about the benefits of top surgery for girls as young as thirteen and hormone therapy for children as young as eight, along with information about clinic staff seeking to hide children’s gender identity from their parents. This is the path that CHOP, and an increasing number of children’s hospitals, have chosen to go down in promoting deeply unscientific practices to their youngest patients.

Only time will tell whether America’s medical institutions continue this trend.

What are state medical boards working on? 1,500 pages of nothing but DEI

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It is perhaps common knowledge that DEI has fully infiltrated many state medical boards, committees, and commissions around the country. But what is less clear is how much time and work these boards are putting into pet DEI projects at the expense of other meaningful efforts.

Earlier this year, Do No Harm submitted a public records request for communications discussing diversity or DEI between the Missouri Board of Registration for the Healing Arts and the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB).

The response? More than 1,500 pages worth of material and work related to DEI. In fact, across these 1,500+ pages, the word “diversity” alone was mentioned nearly 500 times. And that’s just from a single state’s medical board—imagine the volume of correspondence related to DEI from all states medical boards.

Contained deep within these 1,500+ pages are several notable (and troubling) finds.

For example, a 2023 update to the FSMB “House of Delegates” includes a barrage of diversity-obsessed materials, such as new “justice fellowships” for “ensuring equity in measurement and assessment” complete with a “$30,000 stipend”, a heads-up for the upcoming “Equity in Measurement and Assessment Conference”, and much more.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. An interim report by the “FSMB Workgroup on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Medical Regulation and Patient Care” contains more than 30 pages on ways in which the entire medical establishment is inherently racist, with implicit biases that are in desperate need of correcting. But contained in the “proposed mitigation strategies” to counter these supposed structural inequities are:

  • “Apply[ing] an equity lens in all application reviews” for licensure;
  • “Consider[ing] bias training and education about Social Determinants of Health and health disparities” as potential testing requirements;
  • “Adopt[ing] as policy that board composition should reflect the communities served” to guarantee racial concordance between medical boards and communities;
  • “Mandat[ing] bias training and trauma informed education” for new board members;
  • “Mandat[ing] minimum levels of diversity for membership on board committees”;
  • “Creat[ing] [a] committee responsible for reviewing all policies and guidelines through equity lens”;
  • And much more.

In other words, equity is so unbalanced that mandates in bias training, diversity quotas, committee reviews of policy, and racial concordance—which is equal to racial segregation—are the only solutions. Yet, this premise is entirely misguided, as research by Do No Harm found no meaningful correlation between the integration of racial concordance and improved outcomes for patients.

But perhaps these types of bizarre policy recommendations are to be expected from activists that consider racism to be “a leading cause of death and preventable harm” in the U.S. health care system, as noted in the working group’s final report. Yes, you read that right. The CDC must have missed “racism” when ranking causes of death in their data brief on mortality in the United States. Heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s, and more all made the cut—but not “racism”.

At the center of many of these controversial statements is Dr. Jeffery Carter, who last year was elected Chair of the FSMB and who also served as Chair of the above-mentioned FSMB Workgroup on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Medical Regulation and Patient Care. Dr. Carter just so happens to also be a member of the Missouri Board of Registration for the Healing Arts—the central subject of the public records request issued by Do No Harm, along with the FSMB.

Interestingly, it seems Dr. Carter has a history of filing lawsuits claiming discrimination in response to setbacks in his medical career. In 1995, he sued St. Louis University claiming discrimination after he was dismissed from the school’s general surgical residency program for poor performance. He lost at the trial and on appeal. In 2011, he sued Missouri Baptist Medical Center alleging discrimination after his failed bid to become the hospital’s chief anesthesiologist. Again, he lost at the trial and on appeal.

Now, after his round of failed discriminatory-based lawsuits, Dr. Carter is setting DEI medical policy for state medical boards in Missouri and around the country.

Imagine if Dr. Carter and his colleagues put as much time and effort into addressing medical developments, serious health conditions, or moral issues related to health care, as they did on DEI. The amount of work dedicated to sending and answering emails on woke medicine alone is staggering, given the more than 1,500 pages of correspondence from the records request. Every hour wasted on their obscure addiction to DEI is an hour that is not dedicated to legitimate issues in the medical community.

State medical boards are trusted with safeguarding licensing and credentialing for medical practices. The blatant disregard for their moral charge at the expense of woke politics is equal parts damaging and frightening. The sooner these boards are called out for their unhealthy fixation with DEI, the better.

Illustrating the Veiled Costs of DEI

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Why universities that vigorously enforce racial preferences in selecting medical students avoid racial quotas when recruiting, say, their basketball players

DEI gives the appearance of improving the world only in situations where its alleged benefits are more easily seen than its long-term costs.

Whom does DEI harm?  It’s not just the high-performing Asian Americans and others whom medical schools have excluded based on their race.  It’s also the patients, of all races, years and years hence, who won’t benefit from the skill and diligence of the individuals now excluded by today’s racist DEI policies. 

All of these injured people are unseen – hence voiceless – in current debates. 

It is a key concept from Claude-Frédéric Bastiat, the 19th-century economist and member of the French Liberal School, in his book, That Which is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen (1850):

“[I]t almost always happens that when the immediate consequence [of an act, habit, or law] is favourable, the ultimate consequences are fatal, and the converse. Hence it follows that the bad economist pursues a small present good, which will be followed by a great evil to come, while the true economist pursues a great good to come, — at the risk of a small present evil.”

This principle explains why universities that vigorously enforce DEI in selecting their undergraduates, medical students, and law students assiduously avoid racial quotas when recruiting, say, their basketball players.  

One might ask why the basketball team does not perfectly represent the general population in terms of racial/ethnic groups.  Is conspicuous under-representation of Caucasians and Asian-Americans – and conspicuous over-representation of African Americans – a problem of racial bias that cries out to be fixed with racial quotas?  As self-anointed anti-racist Ibram X. Kendi (né I. Henry Rogers) has declared:

“To be antiracist … is to view the inequities between all racialized ethnic groups … as a problem of policy.”

“The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”

Clearly, these universities – just like the NBA – utterly ignore race and ethnicity in their drive to get the best players.  Why the single-minded laser-focus on merit in prospective basketball players – yet not in tomorrow’s physicians? 

Because low-merit basketball players become obvious in the very next game, embarrassingly so, in front of the cash-paying public.  But low-merit medical students may take years and years to discover – with predictably tragic results.  

Make no mistake that this is a zero-sum game when it comes to medical school classes.  Each medical school has a fixed number of slots for each incoming class.  Consider a medical school with 150 slots.  If an applicant who’s ranked #400 without racial considerations checks the “right” racial box to become #25, then he or she goes from rejected to admitted.  That’s what is seen. 

What’s unseen is what happens to the applicant who was formerly ranked #150.  She or he goes from admitted (#150) to not admitted (#151).  That applicant will not become a doctor at that medical school, perhaps not at any medical school. 

The problem is often multiplied by 10, or 20, or 50 – depending on how many applicants with weak records but the “right” ancestry are vaulted by the admissions committee across the fixed number of 150.  For every one of them (seen), someone with a different ancestry falls from admitted to rejected – and vanishes from sight (not seen).  Invisible and voiceless. 

It demonstrates the narcissism, and racism, of the applicants who “check the box”.  Checking the box is a way of saying,

“Yes!  I want to participate in a racist system that punishes Asian-Americans!  Yes, I want to get ahead by elbowing a fellow student out of the way, especially one who might have a better application!” 

It’s like the old Twilight Zone episode: when the protagonist pushes a button, he’ll get a million dollars, but someone he’s never met dies.  It does not change the fact that the person harmed is a real flesh-and-blood individual.  Checking the box always hurts another applicant – and may hurt future patients. 

My solution?  Put the basketball coaches in charge of medical school admissions.  The cash-paying public of all races and ethnicities expect to be entertained by basketball players of high-merit – and will be better served by future physicians who are also of high-merit. 

Do No Harm Launches “Fire Levine” Campaign Following New Revelations in WPATH Scandal

Do No Harm, the nation’s leading medical watchdog group, launched a campaign to fire Assistant Health and Human Services Secretary Rachel Levine following bombshell reports revealing Levine pressured the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) to remove age restrictions from standards of care resulting in children subjected to unscientific, irreversible, life-altering medications and surgeries. 

Newly unsealed documents publish emails showing Levine pressured WPATH to remove the age limits due to political concerns, despite a lack of scientific evidence supporting the change. The emails are excerpts from legal filings in a federal lawsuit that opposes Alabama’s ban on gender-affirming care.

In less than 24 hours since the campaign launched, Do No Harm received more than 1,000 signatures on a petition to get Levin to resign immediately or be fired.

Do No Harm’s petition reads, in part: “Levine’s demands were politically motivated and showed no concern for medical evidence or ethics. As the documents show, Levine worried that age restrictions would cause more states to pass laws protecting children … Rachel Levine has harmed children by intervening in the development of medical guidelines. We call on Rachel Levine to resign immediately. Failing that, we call on President Biden to fire Rachel Levine.” 

Do No Harm Chairman Dr. Stanley Goldfarb condemned Levine and the Biden Administration in a statement: 

“Rachel Levine and the Biden Administration ignored science and subjected children to life altering experimental medical treatments in the name of radical politics. Their unscientific pressure campaign against WPATH to remove age-based guidance for transgender surgeries that risked harming thousands of children. Do No Harm is calling on Levine to resign immediately, or be fired, for putting politics over patients.” 

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 more than 8,000 members, including doctors, nurses, physicians, and concerned citizens across all 50 states and in 14 countries, DNH has achieved more than 9,700 media hits in top-tier publications and garnered widespread attention through numerous broadcast news appearances. 

Washington State Medical Association Undermines Law to Fund Racial Concordance

WSMA’s misguided policy is disrespectful to patients, physicians, and may be illegal

Why is the Washington State Medical Association raising money for a project that may be illegal? WSMA, the state chapter of the American Medical Association, appears to be offering racially discriminatory funding, via its foundation, with its new Scholarship and Diversity Advancement Fund.

The foundation says its intent is “to build a more diverse physician population in Washington state by supporting students who are underrepresented in medicine.” Its website notes that racial and ethnic minorities comprise 30 percent of the U.S. population but “only about 10 percent of practicing physicians are Latino, African American, Native American or Alaska Natives combined.”

Figure 1. From the WSMA Foundation website (June 26, 2024).

In its push to increase the number of racial and ethnic minorities in the medical field, the WSMA Foundation is establishing a scholarship fund based on “racial concordance” – a deeply flawed and misguided theory that suggests patients receive better care when treated by practitioners of the same race.

Its website claims: “Physician and patient racial concordance contributes to a more effective therapeutic relationship and improved health care. When the physician is the same race as the patient, patients report higher levels of trust and satisfaction and demonstrate greater treatment compliance. At the same time, medical students trained at diverse schools are more comfortable treating patients from a wide range of racial and ethnic backgrounds.”

Yet, medical research does not support these claims.

Certainly, disparate health outcomes are real challenges facing the American healthcare system, but racial concordance mandates in our hospitals and clinics often fail to account for the severities of patient illnesses and risks of mortality – among other factors – and are not meaningful solutions, as our December 2023 report –“Racial Concordance in Medicine: The Return of Segregation” found.

“The implications for racial concordance should be clear. First, attempts to match patients to doctors on the basis of race hold no promise for producing better care or better outcomes. Instead, as common-sense dictates, patient-provider pairings should be determined by convenience, practicality, and expertise. Second, efforts to increase the number of doctors from any particular racial group will not result in better patient care,” the Do No Harm research discovered.

Further, prioritizing diversity in student admissions at medical schools by offering scholarships to members of underrepresented racial and ethnic groups gives unfair preferential treatment to certain students. Indeed, this practice also circumvents the Supreme Court’s June 2023 ruling against affirmative action in education.

The WSMA seems undeterred.

In May, the WSMA and Washington’s three medical schools — the University of Washington School of Medicine, the Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences College of Osteopathic Medicine, and the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine — issued a joint statement expressing support for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts in medicine. “These efforts are foundational to increasing health care access, quality of life, and the experience of belonging in our communities, along with striving for the highest attainable standard of health for all,” their statement professed.

However, even they acknowledge that there is growing momentum to push back against these and other similar efforts— now including a bill in Congress that proposes to end federal funding for U.S. medical schools with DEI programs — which “may have consequences for the work we’re doing here in our state.” In the field of medicine, where a health care provider’s competency can make a life-or-death difference, a smarter approach to qualifying medical school admissions is to emphasize strong academic readiness, as our report suggests.

Yet, with its Scholarship and Diversity Advancement Fund, the WSMA Foundation has set a goal of awarding full-tuition scholarships for four years to three students annually, one at each of Washington’s medical schools. It aims to initially secure $2 million to $3 million to endow the fund, and then to increase that fundraising goal to $5 million (in mid-May, it had raised just over $780,000). Criteria for a scholarship is based on obtaining admission to a Washington medical school, meeting the Association of American Medical Colleges’ definition of “underrepresented”. and having a “commitment to advancing health equity.”

According to the foundation, 15 percent of students overall at the three medical schools in Washington are Black/African American/African, Hispanic/Latinx, Pacific Islander/Hawaiian Native, and American Indian/Alaska Native (using data from 2022-2024). Two of the universities offer no full-tuition scholarships; the other offers a few, the foundation says, though it does not explain the demographics of scholarship award recipients.

To emphasize the importance it places on diverse racial representations, the foundation cites a 2022 working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research, claiming that “patients who share racial characteristics with the physicians treating them demonstrate higher rates of both treatment compliance and personal satisfaction” and that “newborn/physician racial concordance is associated with a significant improvement in mortality for black infants.” 

These claims simply do not align with the preponderance of evidentiary scholarship, including the research conducted by fellows at Do No Harm.

While identifying the causes and potential solutions to meaningfully address racial health disparities is a worthy cause, restructuring the provision of healthcare in America along racial lines – based on faulty and misguided information – isn’t the answer. Pursuing this agenda fosters distrust between physicians and patients of different races and doubt among patients and physicians about the qualifications of providers.

We can chart an alternate path – one that promotes wellbeing, confidence in the capacities and preparedness of our medical professionals, and protects patients from profiling that leads to diminished outcomes and increased sociopolitical divide.

VCU School of Medicine Highlights the Promise and Limitations of Affirmative Action Prohibition

Should medical school be reserved for the best and brightest or those who check arbitrary diversity checkmarks?

Last summer, the Supreme Court went a long way in clarifying the answer in ruling that race-conscious college admissions violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The explicit racial favoritism that occurred in medical schools through affirmative action is (or at least ought to be) relegated to the dustbin of history. Unfortunately, the Court’s decision doesn’t mean that competence, excellence, and merit win outright. Admissions guidelines obtained by Do No Harm from the Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) School of Medicine reveal that the school continues to reward “diversity.” Specifically, applicants receive additional points if they “would add something unique to the class (e.g., cultural background, life experience, artistic talent).”

Figure 1. From “File Review Guidelines for the 2023 Admissions Cycle,” page 5 (Virginia Commonwealth University).

The VCU guidelines offer no justification as to why the school values things like cultural background, rural habitation, or artistic talent, none of which predict clinical success.

As a practical matter, there is simply no reason that these types of traits should factor into admissions decisions. As a legal matter, awarding points for “cultural background” is likely a smokescreen for an attempt to reward candidates from racial groups “underrepresented in medicine.” In a notable exchange in the Supreme Court, a lawyer representing Students for Fair Admissions opined that it would be acceptable for colleges to reward students who write essays about dealing with cultural differences. In response, an incredulous Justice Kagan (who voted to uphold affirmative action) quipped: “The race is part of the culture and the culture is part of the race, isn’t it? I mean, that’s slicing the baloney awfully thin.”

Kagan isn’t necessarily correct to conflate race and culture. They are in fact distinct concepts, and it’s possible that VCU—for dubious reasons—aspires to reward applicants who, for example, were raised by cowboys in Texas or monks in the Himalayas.

However, it is clear that many across the healthcare establishment are searching for workarounds to the Court’s ruling against race conscious admissions, just as it is clear that VCU maintains a firm commitment to the DEI agenda. Against this backdrop, vigilance is needed to ensure that VCU sees matters differently from Justice Kagan and that race and culture are in fact treated as distinct concepts. Or, sensibly, the school could scrap the “diversity” component of their admissions process altogether in recognizing that it doesn’t predict physician quality but crowds out aptitude, work ethic and other traits that truly matter.

Dartmouth Dean Urges Students to Seek Lawmakers’ and Governor’s Defense of Gender Ideology

Using official channels to oppose legislation raises serious institutional questions

Faculty at Dartmouth are using official institutional channels to rally student opposition to legislation that would classify individuals according to biological sex.

According to an email obtained by Do No Harm, faculty at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine are seeking to bolster student opposition to several bills advanced by the New Hampshire state legislature. “Recent legislative changes have raised concerns about the rights and well-being of our transgender community members,” wrote Tara Cunningham, associate dean for student life at Geisel, in an email from her official Dartmouth account to a student Listserv. “By standing in solidarity and promoting inclusive practices, we can foster a healthcare environment that supports the health and happiness of all our community members.”

Cunningham went on to urge students to contact New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu and voice their opposition to the legislation. The bill, New Hampshire HB 619, would ban gender transition surgeries for children. Other legislation targeted in Cunningham’s email would require people at sports facilities, schools, and prisons to use the bathroom corresponding with their biological sex, ban biological males from competing in female sports teams in grades 5–12, and keep parents apprised of LGBTQ-related materials in schools. Such legislation would reinforce protections for students and children from being victimized in school or receiving irremediable sex reassignment surgeries while underage.

The completely justified premise of this legislation makes Dartmouth’s opposition even more concerning. The email to the student body also contained the signatures of Lisa McBride, Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging at the Geisel school, and medical student Nicholas An. It’s not entirely clear whether the email constitutes official guidance from the school, besides being sent from an associate dean’s school email to a official Dartmouth Listserv. No word on gender ideology has been forthcoming from Dartmouth president Sian Leah Beilock, herself the subject of recent controversy over having police remove a pro-Palestine encampment on Dartmouth’s campus.

If this opposition to defending biological sex is not representative of Dartmouth’s institutional position, the University ought to clarify this. Disagreement among faculty at a private university is a completely normal fixture of academic life and practice, but the use of official institutional channels to urge med students to advance gender ideology is a concerning development that Dartmouth ought to take seriously and explain.

The full text of the email from Cunningham, McBride, and An is below:

Figure 1. Email recently sent to students by Geisel School of Medicine associate deans.

Do No Harm Sues American Association of University Women for Racial Discrimination

 RICHMOND, VA, June 20, 2024 – Do No Harm filed a lawsuit against the discriminatory “Selected Professions Fellowships” program offered by the American Association of University Women (AAUW), which illegally excludes certain women based on race.

Women pursuing an education in one of AAUW’s designated degree programs can receive $20,000 and networking opportunities. Fellowships awarded for medicine, law, and business are “restricted to women of color” and are “open only to women from ethnic minority groups … Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino/a, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, and Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander.”

AAUW’s “Selected Professions Fellowships” program violates the Civil Rights Act of 1866, 42 U.S.C. §1981, which requires racial equality in “to mak[ing] and enforce[ing] contracts.”

Do No Harm is filing on behalf of its medical-student members who meet all criteria laid out by AAUW but are ineligible to apply to the fellowship because of their race.

“We must keep identity politics out of medical education whether that be in the classroom or in medical fellowship programs,” said Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, Chairman of Do No Harm. “Every patient deserves access to the best possible care. Yet, ideologically driven fellowships such as those offered by the American Association of University Women, do not improve care. Medical fellowships should be awarded to students because of merit, not race.”

“The American Association of University Women should be ashamed of their archaic and illegal practice of discrimination based on race, said Kristina Rasmussen, Executive Director of Do No Harm. “As a women-led organization they should be lifting up all women. The AAUW should reverse course and open their fellowships and other opportunities to all women.”