Do No Harm Challenges Tennessee’s Racial Quotas for State Boards and Commissions

Nashville, TN; November 8, 2023:  Today, Do No Harm, a prominent national nonprofit committed to safeguarding healthcare from radical and divisive ideology, filed a federal lawsuit against the unlawful racial quotas imposed on the governor of Tennessee when making appointments to state boards and commissions.  

The Tennessee Board of Podiatric Medical Examiners requires one board member to be a racial minority, which has nothing to do with podiatry. A seat reserved for a racial minority opened in June 2023, and despite no shortage of qualified podiatrists in Tennessee, the governor has not made any appointments to the board. 

“State medical boards are given important responsibilities to oversee the quality of care in their state and the safety of patients. It is crucial that they be the most qualified physicians available. Like all aspects of healthcare, patient safety and patient concerns should be primary, not the skin color or the racial makeup of any oversight committee,” Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, board chair of Do No Harm. 

“Tennessee law forces governor after governor to engage in racial discrimination when making appointments to state boards and commissions,” said Laura D’Agostino, an attorney with Pacific Legal Foundation who are bringing the suit pro-bono. “Using race to make appointments to government boards is not only demeaning and unconstitutional, but it undermines the distinctive spirit of the Volunteer State by precluding opportunities for Tennesseans to serve their local communities.” 

Tennessee is far from the only state that uses immutable characteristics to limit opportunities for individuals to serve their state and local communities. A report released by PLF, Public Service Denied, found that 25 states codify such unconstitutional discrimination.

The case is Do No Harm v. William Lee and was filed in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee. Find additional information here.

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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 5,000 members, including doctors, nurses, physicians, and concerned citizens across all 50 states and in 14 countries, DNH has achieved more than 4,900 media hits in top-tier publications and garnered widespread attention through numerous broadcast news appearances.

Clinical Advisor is Misadvising

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Clinical Advisor claims to be a medical news and opinion site designed for nurse practitioners and physician assistants. Discerning whether that news is real or fake will require some effort from readers.

A recent article offered up an intriguing headline: “Cultural competency training changes behavior among emergency department nurses.” The headline references a poster presentation at the recent DNPs of Color Annual Meeting. The poster shares results from an intervention in which the researcher measured “cultural awareness” at baseline, then once again immediately after watching a one-hour movie called “Ending Racism is Everyone’s Responsibility,” and then a third time four to six weeks after that. The researcher observed that “cultural awareness” scores increased through the three observation periods.

According to the researcher, “the data revealed a behavioral trend and clinical significance.” That characterization is inaccurate for several reasons.

First, experiments must include intervention and control groups to parse out treatment effects from other factors that could shape the outcomes of the intervention group, such as placebo effects (i.e., benefits that arise from the participant’s belief that the intervention is effective) or Hawthorne effects (i.e., participants altering their behavior because it is being observed by researchers). It is entirely possible that the survey responses of the participants changed because they were mindful of being observed or that they hoped for the intervention to succeed.  

Second, attitudinal surveys are not indicative of “behavioral trends.” Surveys and tests are often poor predictors of human behavior, including issues related to race. The popularly utilized Implicit Association Test, which is used to measure “implicit bias,” does not demonstrate any ability to predict racist behavior. Most likely, the survey trends observed in this “study” do not equate to behavioral changes, and indeed it strains credibility and common sense that watching a one-hour video would alter patterns of human behavior.

Third, the claim the results were “clinically significant” is a matter of personal judgement, and one that is contradicted by the objective measure of statistical significance. In fact, the reported statistical significance—a measure that determines the likelihood that the results were determined by some effect rather than random chance—doesn’t even come close to reaching conventional thresholds of significance.

The study and its characterization in Clinical Advisor are emblematic of a healthcare establishment that continues to embrace the pseudoscientific claim that racism permeates American medicine, and the equally dubious idea that it can be expunged through interventions with no history of success. Evidence for these ideas is wanting, even if Clinical Advisor pretends otherwise.

Meet Raheem Williams, Do No Harm Senior Fellow

In 2018, Raheem Williams couldn’t have known that his professional and educational backgrounds in economics and social policy — combined with a personal history of digging for medical answers ­— would lead him to be an advocate for the safety of children.

But today, Williams is just that: A researcher who demands data-driven information about all things, especially when it involves children and irreversible medical procedures.

A practiced researcher and policy analyst by trade, Williams began noticing something while digging through medical jargon and empirical research on Google Scholar: Medical news reports were ablaze with mentions of youth “gender affirming care,” “life-saving care,” and “gender ideology.” Williams’ propensity for research told him to dig deeper past the buzzwords. He didn’t like the narrative that he saw.

“For roughly four years, I was a silent observer, just reading and watching the narrative unfold. But I noticed that the language used by medical professionals and the media was trying to equate transgender youth to gay rights—but fundamentally, it’s not. Challenging the notion of putting kids through medical procedures that are lifelong and completely elective isn’t about gay rights. It’s about one question: Can kids consent?” Williams said.

“When you see bad things happening and no one speaks up, it gets worse. I was—and am—fundamentally bothered by the lack of conversation around this issue and the way the media purposefully uses language that misleads people, like ‘life-saving care.’ Most Americans don’t understand that this is a dog whistle for radical policies. I felt compelled by the basic issue of human decency to speak up.”

Raheem Williams, Do No Harm senior fellow.

Williams’ background in policy and his expertise in research has allowed him to speak on the issue of transgender youth in a way that few can command. Williams finds it particularly disturbing that what medical practitioners and scientists are saying to each other behind closed doors is miles apart from what they’re telling the public. His paper, The Trans Youth Phenomenon: Critiques and Hard Questions, forces readers to confront the medical evidence that points out that there is no biological basis for transgender ideology, and what little evidence that does exist raises new ethical dilemmas, particularly among children and the use of puberty suppressors.

But that research is ignored by the media, activist clinicians, and advocates so-called “gender affirming care” who instead promote weak research to justify their worldview.

“There’s a universality in public policy where Americans tend to be indifferent to problems that they don’t see as their own. With lawmakers, we need to zoom out,” Williams said.

“It’s a fundamental question: What exactly is a minor? Why do we have legal protections for minors? That’s what we need to think about right now. I live in a country where you must be 21 to buy cigarettes but I’m being told that even a 12-year-old can understand the ramifications of a sex change.”

That question is one Williams is determined to have every adult answer as he advocates for the victims — kids and their parents alike.

“As a society, we must get back to protecting the innocence of children. Where we, as adults, understand the extreme difficulty of making serious decisions and do not put that burden on kids,” Williams said.

He is quick to empathize with parents who truly believe they are protecting their children by advocating for them — parents who have been told over and over by medical professionals that their child needs to transition, lest they kill themselves. According to Williams, these parents are victims too — victims who deserve honest practitioners.

Williams believes the more our society lifts the voices of these victims, the more the public will understand this issue — and combat it. His experience testifying in the states has shown him that people on both sides of the political aisle, across every religion, creed, and skin color are opening their eyes to the gravity of this issue, and the lasting ramifications it has on our children. New groups of people are coming together and discovering they have one thing in common: Common sense — and the desire to protect kids.

Washington State University Hides Its Comments to the AAMC in the DICE Inventory

Washington State University’s Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine doesn’t want to reveal just how much it has aligned with the AAMC’s politicized policies for medical schools, as it has shown in its Diversity, Inclusion, Culture, and Equity (DICE) Inventory document it sent to Do No Harm.

Here’s the background. In November 2022, the Association of American Medical Colleges released a report showing that the vast majority of medical schools have embraced identity politics, despite their divisive and even discriminatory nature. The report was based on surveys of specific medical schools, which the AAMC didn’t name.

For the sake of transparency and accountability, Do No Harm submitted freedom of information requests to public medical schools nationwide, including Washington State University College of Medicine (WSUCOM). We asked for a copy of its DICE Inventory survey response, so that Washington taxpayers and policymakers could learn the truth about this institution.

However, WSUCOM was unwilling to provide a complete version of the Excel spreadsheet that participating schools sent to AAMC. In April, the school sent an Excel document titled “22-436 Installment No Redactions.xlsx.” But upon review, the spreadsheet has had all the comments columns removed. For example, here is how the Government, Leadership, & Mission tab should appear (there is a column on the right titled “Supporting Evidence – Free Responses” that is available for the school to enter comments):

Figure 1. Except from the AAMC’s DICE Inventory Excel spreadsheet.

This is how the same tab (and all the tabs) of the Excel spreadsheet sent by WSUCOM appears (note how the column for “Supporting Evidence – Free Responses” is missing):

Figure 2. Excerpt from the WSUCOM DICE Inventory Excel spreadsheet.

Upon questioning the Public Records Office at WSU, we were told, “The Office of Public Records did not delete or redact anything from the record. We also verified with the department that provided the record that they did not delete anything from the record prior to submission to the Office of Public Records.” Yet, the comments have mysteriously disappeared from the spreadsheet, which is something we haven’t seen in other cases.

Minus the comments – which were submitted in all other DICE Inventory Excel documents we received – here’s what the Washington State University College of Medicine has self-reported:

  • It has adopted racially discriminatory admissions practices under the guise of “affirmative action.” This means it’s potentially lowering standards in the name of diversity, thereby threatening patient health. An example is the “holistic admissions” process, which WSUCOM openly promotes: “Personal stories, reflection, and life experiences review what academic metrics cannot,” the schools Admissions Requirements webpage states.
  • It has a “dedicated office, staff, or resources” dedicated to DEI. This means there’s a permanent woke bureaucracy pushing ideology on faculty and students. In fact, WSUCOM is so dedicated to this agenda that it posts a 57-page “Strategic Diversity Action Plan” on its DEI office’s website.
  • It lobbies for woke policies at the federal, state, and/or local levels. This means it’s wading into toxic public debates instead of fully focusing on educating future physicians. “As WSU administrators and faculty continue to develop the medical school,” the Strategic Plan page states, “they stay in touch with the universities government affairs office, which maintains regular contact with elected officials who can provide resources to help the college.”
  • It offers tenure and promotion to faculty who prove their commitment to extreme identity politics and woke priorities. This is a litmus test that requires faculty to toe the party line instead of teaching medicine at the highest level. In its Guidelines for the Tenure and/or Promotion of Pre-Tenured and Tenured Faculty document, WSUCOM notes that “efforts to promote diversity” are important for applicants to document when describing their service activities.
  • Its administrators are active within local, regional, and national forums to promote equity, diversity, and inclusion. This means it’s wasting resources that would be better spent on real medical education. The WSUCOM Student, Staff, and Faculty Resources page illustrate its alignment with the DEI position of the AAMC and with intercampus initiatives such as the Equity Committee.

All told, WSUCOM has instituted 89.5% of the divisive and discriminatory woke policies listed by the AAMC. And you can bet it is feeling pressure from activists and outside groups to go even further down the radical rabbit hole – doing even more damage to faculty, medical students, and ultimately, the millions of patients they’ll see.

Figure 3. WSUCOM DICE Inventory overall score.

Washington taxpayers help fund the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine at Washington State University. They, and the policymakers who represent them, should ask why they’re giving so much money to an institution that’s putting divisive and discriminatory ideology at the heart of medical education.

Eastern Virginia Medical School DEI Officer Informs Colleagues National DEI Group Will Be ‘Opposing Legislation Against Use of Race in Admissions’

The vice president of diversity and inclusion at Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS) attempted to offer support to his DEI colleagues during what he called the “difficult days” following the Supreme Court’s decision that outlawed race-based admission practices.

Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) documents obtained by Do No Harm show Mekbib Gemeda, Ed.D. forwarded to members of the Health Professions Chapter (HPC) of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education (NADOHE) information he gathered from a meeting held by the group’s president Paulette Granberry Russell, J.D., on June 28, the day before the release of the Court’s ruling.

Gemeda suggested NADOHE would still be supporting use of race in admissions whenever possible.

“I hope you are staying well during these difficult days,” he wrote in an email, and continued to summarize Russell’s meeting.

“The goal of the meeting was for Paulette to hear from Chapter leaders and to share plans and activities of NADOHE on the Supreme Court decision and State Legislation that is already affecting officers and programs,” he said, adding some “key highlights” of the meeting.

“NADOHE will continue to lead and partner with other organizations in opposing legislation against use of race in admissions,” Gemeda related, adding:

NADOHE will continue its work on articulating and presenting the argument on the critical importance of diversity in advancing academic excellence and innovation, civic engagement, and in achieving equity. To that end it will continue to work in tandem with other organizations in placing and disseminating this information to the public.

Figure 1. Mekbib Gemeda, VP of Diversity and Inclusion at EVMS.

Gemeda also wrote that NADOHE “is working on developing resource toolkits for members in response to the SCOTUS decision,” and will be “exploring legal options to fight the efforts to dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion programing.”

Additionally, he shared Russell’s official statement on the day of the Court’s decision, one she called a “dark day in our nation’s history.”

Russell called the effects of the Court’s ruling “heart-wrenching”:

Even though many of us anticipated the outcome, facing the reality of the widespread impact of the Court’s ruling is heart-wrenching.

We are a racially diverse country that, as noted by the dissenting Justices Brown, Sotomayor, and Kagan, has not been colorblind.

Russell’s claim is representative of Critical Race Theory (CRT), the foundation of the DEI movement.

“This is a country with a history of legally sanctioned discrimination based on race, with outcomes that permeate our lives today in the 21st century,” she asserted.

Figure 2. NADOHE president Paulette Russell (June 29, 2023).

“While the rulings acknowledge that race affects the lived experiences of students, they nevertheless limit the ability of colleges and universities to consider race in shaping their campuses,” she said, and then vowed:

We at NADOHE are discouraged but not dissuaded from our goals. We have work to do. We have votes to cast. We have students to educate and support. The work to ensure every student in our country has equal and equitable access to a college education continues, even on this dark day in our nation’s history.

Russell’s bio indicates her research interests are mired in a CRT worldview: “gender equity in STEM, campus culture and its impact on marginalized communities, and strategies for dismantling structural racism to create more equitable experiences for faculty, students, and staff of color.”

As Do No Harm reported in December 2022, NADOHE held a webinar series in advance of the Court’s ruling, the goal of which was to prepare academic DEI officers for their response to the anticipated decision and to plan for how they might still continue to support their diversity mission.

The decision by CRT/DEI activists to double down on finding workarounds to the Court’s ruling, however, is not based on any evidence that minority students who are qualified are being denied admission to medical schools, says Do No Harm Chairman Stanley Goldfarb, M.D.

In a letter to the editor at the Wall Street Journal in February, Dr. Goldfarb observed that, even though the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME), America’s primary medical school accreditation organization, has been coercing medical schools to accept more students of certain racial and ethnic groups for several years, “the number of minority students has increased only minimally and remains well below the sought-after goal of equaling the proportion of blacks in America.”

“Medical schools have had to confront the fact that an insufficient number of qualified students are available,” Goldfarb said, and spelled out the stark reality of the damage done by DEI to the future of health care in America: “Forcing greater diversity therefore must lead to a reduction in the merit of the students accepted.”

Additionally, however, Goldfarb noted the great disservice medical school diversity programs will inflict on qualified minority students if they dig in their heels further.

“Pursuing this approach will only undermine the academic achievements of those minority students who deserve admission to medical school and want eagerly to pursue a career in medicine,” he wrote. “They deserve fair treatment, just as patients deserve the highest standard of care.”  

Vanderbilt University Medical Center Department of Radiology Kicks Off Its DEI Week With “Emerging Models of Health Equity” Claiming Racism is the Cause of Disease

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Leave it to Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) to find a way to infuse racism and health equity into every aspect of medicine. The Department of Radiology’s joint effort with the VUMC Office of Diversity and Inclusion this week demonstrates just how far they are willing go with its mission of “achieving health equity.”

The 2023 Vanderbilt Radiology Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Week event kicked on October 23 with a Grand Rounds session by Dr. Ruth Carlos titled “The Biology of Discrimination: Social Genomics and Health Equity.” The stated objectives for this presentation are quite a mouthful:

1. Review emerging models of health equity that link social exposure risk to cancer outcomes 

2. Assess developing evidence for inflammation as a potential pathway for biological effects of social exposure on cancer outcomes  

3. Explore potential effects of social risk on physiologic and epigenetic alteration through a social genomics framework. 

In her presentation, Dr. Carlos, a professor of radiology at the University of Michigan, spoke on “the heritability of social trauma.” This was a typical discussion about how the “social determinants of health” – which physicians have no ability to address or change – are at the root of every health problem in certain groups of patients. She demonstrated this concept in a graphic model. But take note of one thing: She places “race/ethnicity” as the starting point for the model:

Figure 1. Model depicting “the heritability of social trauma” by Dr. Ruth Carlos at VUMC (October 23, 2023).

Dr. Carlos stated, “I’m sure you’re asking, ‘why is a radiologist studying this’?”

Great question. The answer appears in her additional assertions regarding the origin of disease.

Dr. Carlos presented her theory about “social genomics.” In a nutshell, racial discrimination has an effect in the brain that creates a “potential mechanism for embodiment of racism-related disease.”  

Figure 2. Slide from “The Biology of Discrimination: Social Genomics and Health Equity,” presented at VUMC on October 23, 2023.

In conclusion, Dr. Carlos thanked the attendees “for allowing me to push the envelope today.” In response to a question regarding “the ‘biologicization’ of race” and physicians “trying to get away” from that, she said that physicians don’t always think there is racism in medicine because there isn’t “a lab test” that shows it. She also pointed out that Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts (BCBS) “has signed a deal” with four healthcare organizations to track equity measures and outcome rather than services delivered.

Figure 3. From “Championing Health Equity” at BCBS Massachusetts.

As Dr. Carlos put it, “If you align incentives, you will get the results you want.”

Do No Harm rejects the assumption that financial incentives to physicians and healthcare facilities for approaching their patients as members of a group instead of as individuals will result in better care. And, Dr. Carlos’s declarations of the presence of racism in every corner of radiology and the healthcare industry does not affirm her theory that “social genomics equals equitable evidence-based care.” The Vanderbilt University Medical Center Department of Radiology must stop sponsoring events that perpetuate messages that promote division instead of caring for patients according to their individual clinical needs.

UNLV Refuses to Reveal Their Score on the AAMC’s DICE Inventory

For the past ten months, we have been reporting on the public medical schools that participated in the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) Diversity, Inclusion, Culture, and Equity (DICE) Inventory, including the University of Nevada Las Vegas Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine. But UNLV has thwarted all our attempts to obtain a full copy of the school’s DICE Inventory responses. They’re clearly nervous about what it contains.

Here’s the background. In November 2022, the AAMC released a report showing that the vast majority of medical schools have embraced identity politics, despite their divisive and even discriminatory nature. The report was based on surveys of specific medical schools, which the AAMC didn’t list.

For the sake of transparency and accountability, Do No Harm submitted freedom of information requests to public medical schools nationwide, including the UNLV Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine (KSOM). We asked for a copy of its survey response, so that Nevada taxpayers and policymakers could learn the truth about this institution. Most other schools readily shared the Excel spreadsheets they sent to the AAMC, which provides a calculated final report with an overall score.

Yet, despite multiple requests to UNLV’s general counsel, the school refused to respond with anything other than a PDF document that does not include the scoring report. Such a refusal is a clear violation of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), but also goes against Nevada state law. This statute requires UNLV to provide the document in the format requested.

In a final attempt to obtain the Excel spreadsheet, we informed UNLV KSOM that failure to comply with the Nevada Public Records Act would result in Do No Harm seeking legal recourse. Within 24 hours, the school submitted the DICE Inventory in the Excel spreadsheet format.

But there’s one last catch: The functionality of the Excel document we received had been disabled, preventing the final scoring report from being generated:

Figure 1. Excerpt from the “Report” tab of the UNLV KSOM DICE Inventory Excel spreadsheet.

Why aren’t they proud of their DICE Inventory score?

Here’s what we can determine from UNLV’s self-reported “yes/no” survey responses and their comments:

  • It has used racially discriminatory admissions practices under the guise of “affirmative action.” This means it’s potentially lowering standards in the name of diversity, thereby threatening patient health.  It lists “CDI 10.4b” in the survey comments, presumably referring to the “holistic admissions policy” the question asks about.
  • It has a “dedicated office, staff, or resources” dedicated to DEI. This means there’s a permanent woke bureaucracy pushing ideology on faculty and students.  It reports, “The KSOM has a dedicated DEI office with an Associate Dean, Assistant Dean, Coordinator,” and administrative assistant, with its own programming budget.
  • Its administrators are active within local, regional, and national forums to promote equity, diversity, and inclusion. This means it’s wasting resources that would be better spent on real medical education. “The Associate Dean serves as a member of the AAMC Group on Diversity and Inclusion and the Nevada Minority Health Equity Coalition,” as noted in the comments.
  • It has adopted radical training and orientation programs that seek to indoctrinate rather than educate. KSOM indicated in multiple questions that is uses the “Common Read” program during first-year medical student orientation, which is the same orientation event we exposed at Mizzou Med.
Figure 2. Sample questions and responses from the KSOM at UNLV DICE Inventory.

While we cannot determine the percentage of divisive and discriminatory policies listed by the AAMC that the KSOM at UNLV has adopted, you can bet it is feeling pressure from activists and outside groups to go even further down the radical rabbit hole – doing even more damage to faculty, medical students, and ultimately, the millions of patients they’ll see.

Nevada taxpayers help fund the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV. They, and the policymakers who represent them, should ask why they’re giving so much money to an institution attempts to circumvent state and federal law, and one that’s putting divisive and discriminatory ideology at the heart of medical education.

Indiana University Charges $2,500 to Indoctrinate Participants in DEI ‘Certification’ Program

Indiana University (IU) is continuing to embrace the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) movement despite the Supreme Court’s ruling in June that race-based admissions policies and practices are unconstitutional.

IU is offering a 10-week course between February and April 2024, for example, for individuals who wish to be “certified” in DEI “leadership.” The fee to participate in the program is $2,500, which includes seven online sessions, keynote speakers who are considered DEI “industry leaders,” case studies, “thought-provoking” assignments, and a certificate “ceremony.”

The $2,500 fee does not include travel to and from the program’s two “in-person sessions.”

“Participants must have at least five years of experience in a private, public, or non-profit organization, be open to feedback, have the capacity for self-examination, and be willing to challenge their beliefs and biases,” IU says are prerequisites of the program.

An email sent to IU alumni in August, and obtained by Do No Harm, also shows the school is offering past graduates a 10 percent discount off the fee for the certification program.

Figure 1. From an email sent to IUSM faculty and staff on August 8, 2023.

“Research shows that diverse organizations are likelier to outperform non-diverse companies, including profitability and creativity, stronger governance, and better problem-solving abilities,” the email’s promotional message reads and adds:

Through IU’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Leadership Certification Program, build skills to develop a community that embraces a culture of belonging that positively impacts employee performance and engagement and organization innovation, resiliency, and profitability.

In medical schools, DEI is often expressed via the “health equity” movement.

IU’s School of Medicine, for example, is offering a symposium in November titled “From Analysis to Action: Advancing Health Equity Through Learning Health System Research.”

The program is sponsored by IU’s Health Equity Advancing through Learning health systems Research (HEAL-R) Collaborative, whose mission is “to promote health equity scholars and scholarship.”

The course’s overview is steeped in concepts of Critical Race Theory (CRT), including “structural racism” and “institutional oppression”:

Addressing the impacts of structural racism and other institutionalized forms of oppression on the delivery of health care and health inequity requires a dramatic transformation of how our health care systems function. The “learning health system” (LHS) model, in which internal data and experience are systematically integrated with external evidence, and that knowledge is put into practice, holds great promise to foster more responsive and equitable systems of care.

The symposium’s overview says it is “designed to connect trainees and health professionals from a variety of fields … who are focused on bringing quality health care and services to historically excluded, underrepresented, and marginalized patient populations.”

The conference is taxpayer-funded, by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD), which joined the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as part of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) in 2010. 

Figure 2. From the “Advancing Health Equity Through Learning Health System Research” 2023 symposium program.

NIMHD says its mission is focused on social and political factors related to health care, and promotes the view that minority individuals have greater health problems because of discrimination:

The examination of biological factors is fundamental in understanding the development and progression of diseases and has traditionally been the focus of research on minority health and health disparities. NIMHD has been a leader in increasing the scientific community’s focus on non-biological factors such as socioeconomics, politics, discrimination, culture, and environment in relation to health disparities.

“Through NIMHD’s leadership, health disparities has become a recognized scientific field of study,” the institute touts.

On its website, IU School of Medicine boasts it is “committed to advancing culturally competent medical education, clinical care and research.”

The school’s programs are “aligned with three foundational pillars: representational diversity, inclusive working and learning environment, and cultural competence.”

The goal of “representational diversity” is achieved, says the school, by recruiting “trainees, faculty and staff from various backgrounds with focused efforts toward identified diversity categories,” and efforts to create an inclusive environment.

Providing excellent health care, IU Medical School continues, comes from “culturally competent, patient-centered care” that eliminates “health disparities.”

However, Do No Harm Chairman Dr. Stanley Goldfarb has recently warned again of the dangers of emphasizing social and cultural factors that actually do not “determine” health, as radical DEI ideology claims, but rather “affect behaviors associated with health status.”

In a piece in September at City Journal, Dr. Goldfarb argues that “physicians need to practice medicine, not worry about the ‘social determinants of health.’”

He cautions the medical establishment against its drive to push the divisive narrative that “no one should attribute any health-care disparities to individuals’ self-determined actions.”

Dr. Goldfarb labels “absurd” any recommendations that assume “doctors can take on the role of social workers,” who are trained to manage “systemic” factors such as “housing issues, transportation, and health-insurance status.”

He observes as well that requiring such training in the “social determinants of health” is a waste of medical schools’ funds and influence, when a more advanced level of medical training should be the goal.

“[T]his vision of the doctor’s role in society is profoundly flawed and will only lead to further degradation of our health-care system,” Dr. Goldfarb warns. “Worst of all, it will not do anything to improve the well-being of patients or correct disparities in health outcomes. In fact, it is far more likely to worsen patient suffering, since patients will increasingly deal with doctors trained to be political activists instead of true medical professionals.”

Despite Federal Civil Rights Investigations, the University of Minnesota Department of Medicine Seeks Faculty Dedicated to DEI

The University of Minnesota (UMN) is at it again with yet another federal civil rights investigation for sex-based discrimination. But even with all the attention on the school’s civil rights violations, it is still striving to recruit faculty members who are willing to prove their woke bona fides.

In April 2023, the UMN Department of Medicine was investigated by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) for a research award that discriminated on the basis of sex. Shortly after UMN removed this award from its website in September, the OCR opened an additional investigation against UMN for its participation in another program that also violates Title IX.

Considering UMN’s history of sponsoring and promoting discriminatory programs and awards, it’s not surprising that the Department of Medicine would seek faculty members who are likely do go along with the DEI narrative. Look no further than its job posting for an Associate Director for Research and Scholarship in the Division of Hospital Medicine. In addition to the academic qualifications listed, the ideal candidate will “forward efforts regarding Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in research and scholarship.” Although the position requires a medical license, mentoring skills, and a “track record of successful funding for research,” UMN places the credential of “demonstrated commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion” on the list ahead of these requirements.

Just so there’s no question about where the school’s priorities lie, the job posting displays the UMN diversity statements and a link to its robust Office for Equity and Diversity website.

Figure 1. From the “Associate Director for Research and Scholarship & Assistant Professor: Division of Hospital Medicine” job posting at the University of Minnesota.

Equity and diversity is fundamental to everything we do at the University of Minnesota. That’s the message from the UMN Office for Equity and Diversity. What about quality education and sound research based on science instead of ideology? Perhaps offering scholarships with eligibility criteria that don’t discriminate in violation of federal law? With this legacy, the Department of Medicine at UMN has a lot of explaining to do to Minnesota taxpayers and policymakers.

Have you seen job postings at your institution that include requirements of “diversity statements” or other politicized requirements? Do No Harm wants to hear from you.

The Gold Foundation’s Focus on “Humanism” Finds a Home in DEI Movement

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An anonymous member of Do No Harm recently contacted us regarding concerns about a charitable organization that is using its influence and resources to perpetuate concepts like anti-racism, health equity, and identity politics – all with an innocuous motto of “keeping healthcare human.”

The New Jersey-based Arnold P. Gold Foundation was founded in 1988 on the philosophy of “humanism,” and saw that, in 2020, its mission could easily link up with the goals of the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) movement.

The foundation “is dedicated to keeping healthcare human,” the organization touts on its website, adding it “champions humanism in healthcare,” which, it says, is its “Gold standard of care” that “embraces all and targets barriers to such care.”

The organization asserts it achieves its woke mission for an “equitable system” by actively “supporting innovation and creating tools and events to empower more people to elevate humanism in healthcare.”

Community organizing and an emphasis on diversity are also strategies used by the Gold Foundation to fulfill its mission to “change the world.”

“Bringing together diverse students, clinicians, healthcare leaders, and advocates to support each other in amplifying humanism in healthcare” is central to achieving “humanistic healthcare,” claims the foundation.

The American Humanist Association defines “humanism” as both a “progressive” and “rational” philosophy that is free of belief in God or “other supernatural beliefs.” Humanism “advocates the extension of participatory democracy and the expansion of the open society, standing for human rights and social justice,” the definition continues.

In a statement posted in June 2020, the foundation noted its DEIAR mission has been guided by “the killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and other people of color who have been killed or harmed, have created a clear view of what Black Americans and people of color face daily.”

“It is time to come together to create the humanistic world that has been denied to so many,” wrote Richard Sheerr, Gold Foundation chairman, and Richard Levin, M.D., the president and CEO.

Figure 1. Statement by the Gold Foundation on June 3, 2020.

“It is time to come together to move actively toward a world with true equity in health,” the foundation officials added. “It is time to come together to address and dismantle racism.”

Resources provided on the Gold Foundation’s website include a diversity, equity, inclusion, antiracism (DEIAR) “collection” of selections from the organization’s library of “InSight Webinars,” defined as “conference sessions … podcast episodes, art galleries, and more, that related to promoting healthcare equity.”

One of these resources is a course offering titled “Dismantling Structural Racism” (designed in collaboration with NextGenU.org), which provides the following description of its content that stresses Critical Race Theory (CRT) and DEI concept of structural racism:

… an introductory exploration of the key concepts related to health equity, including structural racism, health inequities, and social determinants of health. Participants will develop a practice of self-reflection and learn how structurally racist policies have adversely impacted health. They will also identify strategies to begin dismantling these policies in healthcare organizations and develop an action plan to implement these strategies.

Figure 2. “Dismantling Structural Racism” course from the Gold Foundation.

The course links to a similar resource called ShareTools, which features a photo of medical students holding signs in support of Black Lives Matter and White Coats for Black Lives – two organizations that have been thoroughly discredited and exposed in recent weeks.

Figure 3. ShareTools resource, recommended by the Arnold P. Gold Foundation.

Among the Gold Foundation’s “partners” is the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), which oversees the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) and cosponsors the accrediting body for all medical schools.

AAMC has made acceptance of its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) mission a dominant theme for U.S. medical schools.

Do No Harm Chairman Stanley Goldfarb, M.D., highlighted the AAMC’s influence in November 2022 at the New York Post. “Medical schools should fear a failing grade from the AAMC, which helps determine whether they get accredited,” Goldfarb said. “As a former associate dean, I can attest that when the AAMC sets priorities, administrators rush to follow them.”

Other partnerships include AAMC’s peer-reviewed journal, Academic Medicine; the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), an organization that sets standards for US graduate medical schools and the institutions that sponsor them; and the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN), which represents over 800 U.S. nursing schools and establishes education standards in nursing education.

The Gold Foundation’s influence on medical education is also seen in its establishment of the White Coat Ceremony, whereby first-year students in medical training programs don a white coat as a “rite of passage.” The first such ceremony is claimed by Columbia University in 1993, where Dr. Arnold Gold (the foundation’s namesake) served as a pediatric neurologist.

Figure 4. Information on the history of White Coat Ceremony b the Gold Foundation.

White coat ceremonies “are now found in nearly every medical school in the country,” the foundation boasts, adding the white coat “serves to welcome students to healthcare practice and to elevate the value of humanism as the core of healthcare.” However, the oaths recited at some of these ceremonies have been highly politicized in recent years. As Do No Harm reported in March 2022, the Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons Class of 2025 revised oath had the students promising to “recognize the acts and systems of oppression effected in the name of medicine” and “acknowledge the past and present failures of medicine to abide by its obligation to do no harm.”

The Arnold P. Gold Foundation has obviously had far-reaching influence in the infiltration of radical ideologies into medical education, partnering with prominent organizations to spread its damaging and discriminatory messaging with its unwavering commitment to identity politics. The return of merit and equality to physician training and the healthcare industry depends on the dissolution of these types of associations so that Americans can have their trust in the system restored.  

The State of Ohio Is Maintaining a Professional Board With a Racial Quota

The state of Ohio is discriminating by race with the way it selects members of a healthcare board.

Look no further than its mandate on who’s eligible to serve on the Counselor, Social Worker, and Marriage & Family Therapist Board. As the Pacific Legal Foundation has uncovered, the state is placing race above the qualification that matters most in healthcare: Expertise.

The Ohio Revised Code not only contains racially discriminatory criteria for membership to this board; it specifies exactly which races and ethnicities it requires. Of the twenty-one members, appointed by the governor with the consent of the senate, “at least one member of the board shall be of African, Native American, Hispanic, or Asian descent.”

Such discriminatory mandates reflect the woke corruption of healthcare. States like Ohio likely restricts membership on this board in order to please woke activists who demand race and ethnicity quotas in the name of “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” Yet discrimination violates federal law and the U.S. Constitution.

The Counselor, Social Worker, and Marriage & Family Therapist Board oversees critical parts of the behavioral health field. When board members are chosen by race, they are potentially deprived of more qualified experts. It can result in less medically sound policies and opens the door to more woke extremism. Health authorities should be solely focused on improving health outcomes, regardless of race, gender, or any other consideration.

Do No Harm is dedicated to fighting discrimination in health care. If you or anyone you know wants to serve on this board, please contact us. We’d love to work with you to restore fairness and equal treatment to Ohio.

A Better Way To Beat Anti-Semitism at UCLA: Ditch DEI

The faculty of UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine don’t understand why anti-Semitism is rampant on campus. That’s the gist of a letter that dozens of the educators sent the dean this week. They think that “diversity, equity, and inclusion” should have stopped this awful hatred, but if they’re smart, they’ll realize that DEI is designed to stoke hatred toward the Jewish people and Israel.

The UCLA faculty argue that DEI should have stopped anti-Semitism in its tracks. They write: “While the David Geffen School of Medicine has established an anti-racism curriculum and advocated the principles of the ‘Cultural North Star’, the experience of Jewish faculty and students has been vastly different.” Instead, as they write, “parts of the anti-racism curriculum apportion blame to the Jewish people for racism.” (Anti-racism is an offshoot of DEI that explicitly demands racial discrimination.)

You don’t say. In fact, anti-Semitism is engrained in DEI, because DEI is built on a foundation of Critical Race Theory. As Do No Harm senior fellow Dr. Tabia Lee (a former DEI director at a California college) has proven, DEI divides the world into “oppressors” and “oppressed,” and the Jewish people are always lumped in with the oppressors. For diehard DEI advocates, anti-Semitism isn’t a bug – it’s a feature.

The UCLA faculty urge their medical school to “reevaluate the contents of the ‘Systemic Racism and Health Equality Course’ to ensure accurate representation of our shared values.” But that’s a fool’s errand. So long as DEI reigns supreme at UCLA, anti-Semitism will be encouraged, and medical students will be indoctrinated to hate the Jewish people and Isael.

In their letter, the UCLA faculty write that “for centuries, physicians and medical schools have served as beacons of hope, justice, and compassion.” They can again, but only if institutions like UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine abandon the hateful ideology of DEI.

Minnesota’s Racially Discriminatory Board of Social Work

Minnesota is discriminating by race and ethnicity.

Look no further than its mandate on who’s eligible to serve on the Board of Social Work. As the Pacific Legal Foundation has uncovered, the state is putting race above the qualification that matters most in health care: Expertise. This discrimination is therefore a direct threat to patients. It must be stopped immediately.

The Board of Social Work is made up of fifteen members appointed by the Governor. However, state law requires that, of the ten social worker members, “at least five members must be members of: (1) a community of color; or (2) an underrepresented community.” A supplementary section of the statute makes it clear:

“Underrepresented community” means a group that is not represented in the majority with respect to race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, or physical ability.

Such discriminatory mandates reflect the woke corruption of health care. States like Minnesota likely make these mandated on who can serve on this board in order to please woke activists who demand race and gender quotas in the name of “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” Yet discrimination violates federal law and the U.S. Constitution. Minnesota has no right to restrict membership based on race.

The Board of Social Work oversees critical parts of the medical field. When board members are chosen by race, they are potentially deprived of more qualified experts. It can result in less medically sound policies and more woke extremism. Health authorities should be solely focused on improving health outcomes, regardless of race, gender, or any other consideration.

Do No Harm is dedicated to fighting discrimination in health care. If you or anyone you know wants to serve on this board, please contact us. We’d love to work with you to restore fairness and equal treatment to Minnesota.

Arkansas Has a Racially Discriminatory Board of Pharmacy

Look no further than its mandate on who’s eligible to serve on the State Board of Pharmacy. As the Pacific Legal Foundation has uncovered, the state is putting race above the qualification that matters most in health care: Expertise. This discrimination is therefore a direct threat to patients. It must be stopped immediately.

The State Board of Pharmacy consists of eight members. Five are experienced pharmacists and two are representatives of consumers. However, Arkansas Code (2020) requires that “one (1) member shall be a minority who is a licensed practicing pharmacist in the state,” appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the Senate.

Such discriminatory mandates reflect the woke corruption of health care. States like Arkansas likely restrict membership on boards in order to please woke activists who demand race and gender quotas in the name of “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” Yet discrimination violates federal law and the U.S. Constitution. Arkansas has no right to restrict membership based on race.

The State Board of Pharmacy oversees critical parts of the medical field. When board members are chosen by race, they are potentially deprived of more qualified experts. It can result in less medically sound policies and more woke extremism. Health authorities should be solely focused on improving health outcomes, regardless of race, gender, or any other consideration.

This board is under the umbrella of the Arkansas Department of Health, which is the same agency that oversees the Arkansas Minority Health Commission (AMHC). As we reported in May 2023, Do No Harm settled a federal lawsuit with the AMHC regarding its unconstitutional “Minority Healthcare Diversity Scholarship.” This scholarship was also discriminating on the basis of race by limiting eligibility to “African American, Hispanic, Native African/American Indian, Asian American or Marshallese.” As a result of the settlement, the AMHC no longer offers the award.

Do No Harm is dedicated to fighting discrimination in health care. If you or anyone you know wants to serve on this board, please contact us. We’d love to work with you to restore fairness and equal treatment to Arkansas.

East Carolina University DEI Slide Show Exemplifies Prominence of Critical Race Theory in Medical School Training

A slide presentation authored by East Carolina University (ECU) diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) deans shows the prominent role awarded to DEI philosophy and Critical Race Theory (CRT) in the school’s medical education.

Documents obtained by Do No Harm via a Freedom of Information Act request (FOIA) show Cedric Bright, M.D., ECU Brody School of Medicine vice dean for medical education and admissions, and an interim associate dean for diversity and inclusion, engaged in discussions with colleagues both immediately before and on the day of (June 29) the release of the Supreme Court’s decision affirming that race-based admissions practices are unconstitutional.

The emails show that Bright, who, according to the school’s website, is also among ECU’s DEI “researchers and practitioners,” was anticipating his presentation at a conference in New Orleans for National Medical Fellowships (NMF), of which he is a member of the board of directors.

Before and after the release of the Court’s ruling, Bright conversed with Kema Gadson, Ed.D., Brody associate dean for student affairs, about possible slides that could be included in his presentation. On June 27, Gadson shared a link to a PowerPoint that had been “used for our Council on Diversity & Inclusion Orientation Session (CoDI).”

“We called it Live the Mission since everyone should be working towards living the mission as student, faculty, and staff,” Gadson wrote.

The slide presentation, co-authored by Irma Corral, Ph.D., assistant dean for diversity and inclusion, was divided into two parts: (1) “’Unpacking’ the social determinants of health [SDoH]” and reviewing “key concepts of culture, rurality, and racism in medicine;” and (2) “Discuss academic medicine today and what we need to do next to approach equity.”

Notes that appear to be included in the PowerPoint also assert that “racial disparities in health outcomes in the United States” often lead to medical providers learning “faulty assumptions” that individuals belonging to certain racial groups are responsible for their poor medical outcomes.

Equity “involves moving away from thinking of Race as the cause of health disparities (blames the impacted population), and moving towards understanding the social processes that are the actual cause (contextualizing disparities),” one slide claims.

“Having good health doesn’t just happen … Social factors create significant hurdles,” another set of slides states, and adds, “Hurdle free society when equity is achieved.”

In other words, individual people cannot take responsibility for their own health because systemic racism, and the lack of “health equity,” prevent them from doing that.

“Interpersonal bias training” and “systemic anti-racism training,” are necessary to train the workforce in order to achieve equity, the presentation continues. Another slide features a cartoon supposedly showing that some people have great social hurdles to overcome in order to be healthy.

Figure 1. Cartoon from ECU presentation by Dr. Cedric Bright.

Notes added to explain the CRT-like message of the cartoon reference Dr. Joy DeGruy, author of the book Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America’s Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing, who describes the “syndrome” on her website:

It is a condition that exists as a consequence of multigenerational oppression of Africans and their descendants resulting from centuries of chattel slavery. A form of slavery which was predicated on the belief that African Americans were inherently/genetically inferior to whites. This was then followed by institutionalized racism which continues to perpetuate injury.

The slide show presenters added their own notes:

The ball and chain are the vestiages [sic] of slavery known as Post traumatic slave syndrome by Dr. Joy DeGruy. The land mines are poor public schooling and crowed [sic] housing, barbwire represents indifference of teachers and subtle bigotry of low expectations, the alligator can represent personally mediated racism and social barriers, the brick wall, institutional racism [sic] such standardized testing unequal pay, job discrimination, and the final pit the internalized issues such as imposter syndrome, self fulfilling prophecy, and feelings of guilt.

The presenters continue to identify “barriers” to achieving health equity, referencing a greater need for what appear to be Marxist concepts. Such “barriers” include a society that is focused on the “individual,” with both “limited sense” of “interdependence” and “collective efficacy,” whereby “systems and structures” are “invisible” or “irrelevant.”

Health equity is further obstructed, according to the presentation, by

the “myth of meritocracy,” the concept that “if you work hard you will make it.” This concept, according to the presenters, is based on a “denial of racism,” and ultimately “fosters competition over cooperation” and “masks the costs of inequity.”

Another slide further casts “American exceptionalism” as a “myth,” and equates that concept with “disinterest in learning from others,” and a “sense of U.S. entitlement.”

“White supremacist ideology” is also viewed as a barrier to health equity, says the presentation.

The show’s authors further profess equity can’t be achieved because “White” is viewed as “the ideal and the norm,” and a “sense of ‘White’ entitlement” exists that causes the “dehumanization of people of color” and the “fear at the ‘browning’ of America.”

How are blatantly discriminatory and contentious claims like the statements of Vice Dean Bright of any value to the medical students at ECU Brody School of Medicine? Even worse, it reflects how the leadership at the medical school is dedicated to perpetuating absurd philosophies that aim to place people into identity groups instead of promoting sound science and facts. North Carolina taxpayers and policymakers must insist on an immediate end to the indoctrination of its future physicians.

University of Colorado Medical School Officials ‘Remain Fully Committed’ to Advancing DEI Post-SCOTUS Decision

Deans at the University of Colorado School of Medicine (CUSOM) expressed “disappointment” with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that race-based admissions policies are unconstitutional and affirmed in a statement they “remain fully committed to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion,” documents show.

Emails obtained by Do No Harm via Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests reveal that, on June 29, in response to the Court’s decision, Carol Rumack, M.D., CUSOM associate dean for the Graduate Medical Education (GME) community, sent a draft statement for review to Shanta Zimmer, M.D., senior associate dean for education and associate dean for diversity and inclusion, and Linda Montgomery, M.D., family medicine residency director.

Rumack stressed it was her plan to “send this statement by the end of today to the entire GME community.”

The statement reflects a claim that “the diversity of the physician work force” is tied to “achieving excellence in medicine and science,” and also indicates GME’s concurrence with the joint statement of university president Todd Saliman and Donald Elliman, Jr., chancellor of the CU Anschutz Medical Campus, as well as that of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), regarding the Court’s ruling.

Figure 1. CUSOM statement on the SCOTUS affirmative action decision (June 29, 2023).

“[W]e are also disappointed by the U.S. Supreme Court decision to prohibit the limited consideration of an applicant’s racial or ethnic background in admissions decisions,” Rumack’s statement read, affirming CUSOM GME programs “remain fully committed to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion for the health of the patients and communities we serve.”

In their joint release, Saliman, Elliman, and other CU officials wrote their school “is unwavering in its commitment to fostering a diverse, inclusive and equitable environment … Diversity, Inclusion, Equity & Access is one of the four pillars of our strategic plan, and our commitment to this pillar will not diminish.” 

The officials also indicated they will employ a “whole student” admission process:

We will continue to employ admission processes that consider the whole student and their ability to succeed in our academically rigorous and supportive environment. Our dedication to cultivating a diverse university community runs deep. In fact, our board has set policy that makes it clear that diversity encompasses demographic characteristics while also encompassing diverse life experiences and perspectives.

Also on June 29, Zimmer forwarded an email message reaction to the SCOTUS decision from Michael Harris-Love, DSc, who heads the CUSOM Physical Therapy Program.

In his comments, Harris-Love appeared to be speculating about whether the health professions could be “exempt from the SCOTUS decision”:

Interestingly, the ruling allows that certain occupational segments of society linked to public safety such as the armed forces and military academies are “distinct interests” which are exempt from the SCOTUS decision. It will be a matter of continued national debate and federal jurisprudence to reassess if the health professions also constitute a distinct societal interest intrinsically linked to public health and safety.

Harris-Love further recommended a “holistic review process” for admissions which, he wrote, was “championed by Dr. Canham and the Recruitment and Admissions Committee,” as the means “to do our part in building a more inclusive student body and profession.”

“I will be contacting Committee Chairs, Coordinators, and Section Directors to conduct a review of our policies concerning student admissions and recruitment scholarships,” he said. “This step will further our efforts to remain in compliance while keeping our focus on the university and program academic mission.”

The FOIA email documents reveal that, immediately following the release of the Court’s decision, CUSOM officials began messaging each other about an interview request from education media outlet Chalkbeat for reactions to the ruling.

The Chalkbeat bureau chief expressed interest in an interview, rather than just CU Boulder Chancellor Phillip DiStefano’s formal statement she was sent:

As I’m sure you can appreciate, in our stories we try to go beyond just reprinting portions of formal statements. I would love to talk to someone in admissions about what steps are still accessible to you in terms of recruiting diverse students and what you might have to stop doing. Other states that have banned the use of race in admissions and have struggled to maintain the diversity they had before that policy change, so I really want to hear about the practical steps you plan to take — things that will be meaningful to readers beyond the value statements.

The email documents suggest CUSOM officials wanted to appear supportive of statements opposed to the SCOTUS ruling.

In an email dated June 30, Dean John Reilly, Jr., M.D. wrote to AAMC requesting that his school be added “to the list of signatories for the AAMC statement on the SCOTUS decision concerning the consideration of race in education admissions.”

Figure 2. Email from Dean Reilly signing onto the AAMC’s statement following the SCOTUS decision (June 29, 2023).

Between June 29 and July 6, the documents show an email thread that includes Zimmer, Mark Couch, chief of staff and associate dean of public relations, and Christopher Read, CUSOM data manager, regarding “data on class diversity” for classes of 2023-2026.

“Dean asks for current numbers in medical class diversity,” Crouch emailed Zimmer and others on June 29. “Can you please send asap?”

After Read sent the data, Zimmer thanked him and asked if he could provide their source.

“I often get different info depending on our source,” she wrote. “Also, we have the ability for some students to check multiple boxes.”

“The data was pulled from AAMC reports and the individual flavors of race and ethnicity were further grouped,” Read responded.

On July 5, Zimmer received an email from colleague Jaime Daly who inquired about procedure with admissions interviews following the SCOTUS ruling.

“I know you said that our current cycle of applications wouldn’t be affected by the decision, but I am wondering if we can still have our DEI discussion on interview day,” Daly asked. “Usually, Dr. Clavijo will talk to our applicants for 15 minutes or so about the department’s DEI initiatives and discuss our DEI scholarship. Is this still okay? I’m hoping it is but want to make sure.”

“Yes, totally fine!” responded Zimmer.

The email records show as well that, on July 6, Regina Richards, Ph.D., vice chancellor of DEI and community engagement, asked CUSOM’s “DEI Liaisons” for the following information: “What are the top 3-5 strategies your school/college utilizes for targeted recruitment and retention of minority students?”

Zimmer responded for the “MD Program:” “Attendance at Recruitment fairs (LMSA, Atlanta HBCUs, AAMC, SNMAO); Diversity Scholarships; Holistic Review; Implicit Bias training of admissions committee; Affinity group outreach; Second look days; and Tracking of applicants, interviews, acceptances, matriculants.”

The University of Colorado School of Medicine is clearly discussing ways in which it can circumvent the Supreme Court’s decision to ban the consideration of race in the medical school admission process. These discussions should not be taking place, and may even be describing measures that do not align with federal law. Instead, CUSOM must make legitimate plans on how it will recruit and admit the applicants who will make the most competent and successful future doctors.  

Two of Louisiana’s Healthcare Boards Are Engaging in Racial Discrimination

The Louisiana State Boards of Dentistry and Medical Examiners are discriminating by race.

We reviewed the statutes that have race-based criteria on who’s eligible to serve on these boards. As the Pacific Legal Foundation has uncovered, the state is putting race above the qualification that matters most in health care: Expertise. This discrimination is therefore a direct threat to patients. It must be stopped immediately.

  • The Louisiana State Board of Dentistry’s 15-member board is required to include an “At-Large Seat A” that is filled “from a list of three black dentists certified by the board secretary to the governor.” A ballot is sent via postal mail to all black dentists in the state, who nominate their choices for that list.
  • The ten-member State Board of Medical Examiners must select at least one minority appointee from the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center at New Orleans and at least one minority appointee from the LSU Health Sciences Center at Shreveport.

Such discriminatory mandates reflect the politicization of health care. States like Louisiana likely restrict membership on boards in order to please woke activists who demand race and gender quotas in the name of “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” Yet discrimination violates federal law and the U.S. Constitution. Louisiana has no right to restrict membership based on race.

The Louisiana State Boards of Dentistry and Medical Examiners oversee critical parts of the medical field. When board members are chosen by race, they are potentially deprived of more qualified experts. It can result in less medically sound policies and more woke extremism. Health authorities should be solely focused on improving health outcomes, regardless of race, gender, or any other consideration.

Do No Harm is dedicated to fighting discrimination in health care. If you or anyone you know wants to serve on these boards, please contact us. We’d love to work with you to restore fairness and equal treatment to Louisiana.

Washington’s Woke Brainwashing For Doctors And Nurses

Are doctors in the state of Washington racist? Yes, according to a law that goes into effect on January 1, 2024. Washington lawmakers are mandating that all medical professionals complete so-called “health equity continuing education training” every four years. Physicians, nurses, and many others are going to subjected to insulting accusations of bias and racism, and worse, pushed to discriminate by race.

Washington’s law is grounded in divisive and discriminatory woke ideology. It states, without evidence, that “health outcomes are experienced differently by different people based on discrimination and bias by the health care system.” The solution, apparently, is for medical boards to develop woke training programs for every part of the medical profession.

Washington physicians, nurses, and others can expect woke training that includes “strategies for recognizing patterns of health care disparities on an individual, institutional, and structural level.” They may be force-fed “implicit bias training to identify strategies to reduce bias during assessment and diagnosis.”

Implicit bias training is grounded in the lie that people are racist based on their skin color, especially Whites and Asians. Implicit bias tests have been widely condemned by scholars and the creators of the most widely used test have admitted its severe limitations. Medical professionals shouldn’t be accused of racism, especially when they’ve devoted their lives to providing equal and excellent care to all.

It gets worse. Washington’s mandatory trainings may also include content on “ensuring equity and antiracism in care delivery.” Anti-racism is code for reverse discrimination – i.e., providing preferential access to care for minority patients. This disturbing practice has already been announced at medical providers in other states. It inevitably means that some patients will be pushed back in line based on skin color.

This law could hardly be more extreme. It accuses medical professions of racism, while pushing them to discriminate by race. That’s what woke activists want above all else. Washington patients, beware of what your state is shoving down your doctor’s throat.