Mental Health Org Runs Scholarship for ‘BIPOC’ Clinicians

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

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

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

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

The program’s eligibility criteria do not explicitly include membership of a certain racial group, according to an archived version of the application, but do make clear that the program is intended to increase racial diversity and that the program is intended to support “BIPOC” students.

Additionally, the application requires applicants to enter their race.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More from the report:

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

Click here to read the full report. 

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

HHS Reminds Medical Schools: Racial Discrimination is Against the Law

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The ACGME Caves, Suspends Enforcement of Diversity Requirements for Accreditation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

UCSF Demands Scholarship Winners Pledge Allegiance to DEI

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

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

But there’s a catch.

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

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

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

Figure 1. An excerpt of the UCSF VESP application.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Case Facts:

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

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

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

Click here to read the lawsuit.

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

Indiana Enacts Law Cracking Down on DEI

Huge news in the Hoosier State.

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is a step in the right direction for Indiana.

American Chemical Society Replaces Discriminatory Scholarship Following Do No Harm Lawsuit

RICHMOND, VA; May 7, 2025 – Today, the American Chemical Society (ACS) agreed to replace its racially discriminatory ACS Scholars Program with a new program that will not consider race in the application process. Do No Harm sued the ACS in March 2025 on behalf of a high school senior who met all the qualifications for the program except the racial requirement and was therefore ineligible.  

“We are pleased that the American Chemical Society will stop discriminating based on race in its scholarships. Allowing identity politics to interfere with merit in medical education is not only a disservice to these future medical professionals, but also the patients they will serve,” said Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, Chairman of Do No Harm. “The ACS replacing its previously discriminatory Scholars Program sends a clear message that racial bias has no place in medicine or medical education.”  

The ACS Scholars Program violated the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Additionally, because ACS receives tens of millions of dollars from federal contracts, it violated President Trump’s executive order demanding that federal contractors end discriminatory programs. 

Click here to read the joint stipulation of dismissal. 

Click here to read the original lawsuit. 

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

We Need a Unifying Approach to Mental Health Care

Editor’s Note: This piece was originally submitted by Dr. Miceli as a comment to JAMA Health Forum in response to “How Anti-DEI Policies Adversely Affect Mental Health,” an article authored by Ruth Shim, MD, MPH. Dr. Miceli disclosed his affiliation with Do No Harm when submitting the comment; JAMA Health Forum rejected the submission. 

In the midst of a mental health crisis in the United States it is myopic and mistaken to claim that policies seeking to end DEI’s divisive, discriminatory excesses are adversely affecting mental health. We need to acknowledge the state of behavioral health and address these challenges in their entirety, not through the polarizing lens of structural discrimination.

Unfortunately, mental health in America has declined over time. It is misguided, however, to argue that DEI is “crucial to ensure the emotional well-being of the entire US population.”  The New York Times Magazine, for example, highlighted how DEI created a more negative atmosphere at the University of Michigan even after the school spent roughly $250 million building a bureaucracy trying to make it work. DEI is no panacea.

The evidence Shim offers for DEI’s mental health benefits is shaky as well, with more nuance than her conclusions suggest. In one study cited, state immigration policies labeled as “exclusionary” were “not associated with psychological distress.” In another, used by Shim to argue that state policies have led to fewer discriminatory experiences, the authors plainly state they “cannot claim that the policies themselves created an environment where [trans and nonbinary] people are less likely to experience discrimination.” Moreover, a third paper comments that causality of policies and their potential implications on mental health “cannot be inferred.”

While the relationship between policy and mental health is more tenuous than portrayed, it is also clear that some of the article’s claims overstate the totality of evidence. In one referenced study, reported concern regarding discrimination was “not associated with alcohol use, depression, or ADHD at follow up.” In another, there was no statistically significant reduction in suicidality, as related to state-level nondiscrimination policies, for “gender minority children and adults” in three of four cohorts by the study’s concluding year. And, in another, income may have played a factor in biasing results, compounded by the limited number of respondents with psychiatric disorders in select states.  The authors write, “the results must be interpreted with caution.”

Yet, caution is far removed in the case of DEI advocacy. Shim advances the narrative whereby “our underlying beliefs about people from different racial backgrounds” are shaped by “structural racism.” Such a pessimistic view of mankind ignores the progress America has made and loses sight of our individuality. This view has also spurred the development of harmful DEI programs and policy that prioritize the recruitment and admission of select groups, impose racial quotas, and solely offer racism as the driver of health disparities.

Now, more than ever, is not the time for division. Mental illness is a serious problem in America. To conflate it with policies that aim to correct DEI’s illiberal tyranny is simply wrong. We must take a unifying approach when examining the root causes of the behavioral health ailments facing our nation, rather than placing blame on policies restoring merit, fairness, and equality.

Inside the American Board of Pediatrics’ ‘Climate Change’ Certification Course

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In June 2021, the American Board of Pediatrics (ABP) launched a new course titled “The Impact of Climate Change on Pediatric Health Care,” that is intended to educate board-certified pediatricians about climate change.

The course is approved for “maintenance of certification” credit, meaning that its completion counts toward pediatricians renewing their board certification.

Although justified on the basis of enabling pediatricians to better care for patients, Do No Harm obtained several excerpts from the module that reveal many of the questions have little to do with clinical practice.

Figure 1. A screenshot of the “Impact of Climate Change on Pediatric Health Care” module.

One question, for instance, includes the model answer that “changing to a vegan diet contributes to reducing climate change […].”

However, Drs. Lisa Patel and Karina Maher, two primary authors of the course, wrote that understanding the impact of climate change will improve clinical practice.

“Understanding these health effects will improve the clinician’s ability to counsel, treat, and care for their patients,” they wrote. “Learning how climate change does not affect every person equally is an important step towards recognizing that structural racism can determine health outcomes.”

Figure 2. A screenshot of the “Impact of Climate Change on Pediatric Health Care” module.

Another question’s model answer includes a statement about higher rates of asthma in “redlined” communities.

Meanwhile, another slide opines on the disparity in assets between the “average Black American family” and the average “White American family.”

Figure 3. A screenshot of the “Impact of Climate Change on Pediatric Health Care” module.

Another model answer stated that prenatal exposure to air pollutants could potentially impact the development of a person’s offspring, and specifically that exposure to fossil fuels could lead to developmental delays.

Figure 4. A screenshot of the “Impact of Climate Change on Pediatric Health Care” module.

The course represents the increasing mission creep in the medical profession, in which medical associations increasingly take political and social positions on issues outside the purview of clinical practice.

The premise of the module, that a changing climate impacts public health, may well be true; but that does not then mean that physicians should undergo training in climate science as part of their maintenance of certification. 

That same logic would entail advising physicians to become educated on just about every facet of modern society; from urban planning to criminal justice to the logistics of food distribution; that could conceivably impact public health.

There is no consistent limiting principle, and it’s hard to see how questions as to whether a vegan diet “contributes to reducing climate change” are germane to the practice of pediatric medicine. 

The ABP should certify pediatricians based on competencies relevant to the practice of medicine.

The ACGME’s DEI Awards Program

Last month, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) received top billing in an executive order from President Trump targeting accreditors for injecting DEI and racial discrimination into higher education. 

Per the order, the ACGME’s offensive behavior includes expecting “institutions to focus on implementing ‘policies and procedures related to recruitment and retention of individuals underrepresented in medicine,’ including ‘racial and ethnic minority individuals.’

But in addition to its diversity-promoting accreditation standards, the ACGME goes a step further and helps financially incentivize additional DEI activities at medical schools through the Catalyst Awards, a grant program that provides up to $100,000 to selected projects.

The Catalyst Awards, run in collaboration with the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, awards grants to projects that “impact the clinical learning environment and improve the experience of residents and fellows” in one of three priority areas, including “Promoting diversity, equity, and belonging.” The program will begin accepting applications next month.

Previous recipients of the award include the Northwell Health Feinstein Institute for Medical Research for its project to develop skills “necessary for managing workplace microaggressions,” as well as Johns Hopkins School of Medicine for its “multidisciplinary health equity workshop” that instructs residents to “be cognizant of individual biases (their own and those of others), understand the issue of structural injustice, and address the impacts of bias and injustice on their patients and peers.”

What’s more, in addition to the ACGME’s DEI-infused accreditation requirements for residency programs, the organization also recently released the latest version of its Clinical Learning Environment Review (CLER) Program.

This program is “designed to improve how clinical sites engage resident and fellow physicians in learning to provide safe, high quality patient care.” These expectations are not accreditation requirements for participating residency programs, but are described as “feedback” for residency programs and other clinical settings.

However, the latest version of the program, released in 2024, introduced a new “CLER Focus Area” called Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

Unsurprisingly, that focus area stresses the importance of “strategies and efforts to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion and improve interprofessional learning” in clinical practice.

The DEI focus area includes several DEI “pathways” that are essentially just expectations for residency programs to promote DEI.

For instance, one of the “pathways” states that the “Clinical learning environment creates and maintains diversity among the clinical care team to optimize learning and patient care.” To achieve this goal, the clinical learning environment “creates a systematic and comprehensive approach to recruit and retain a diverse clinical care team.”

All told, the CLER program description mentions “equity” 31 times.

These initiatives are further evidence that the ACGME has a deep, institutional belief in DEI, and its accreditation requirements are just the tip of the iceberg. 

This is an activist organization with an ideological commitment to advancing the DEI agenda.

Federal Court Delivers Major Victory Against Racial Discrimination

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You may have missed it, but last week, a federal court delivered a huge win against racial discrimination and gender ideology.

Judge Timothy Kelly of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia declined to block President Trump’s executive orders targeting DEI and gender ideology. 

This means that the orders, which among other things direct federal agencies to cut off funding for equity-related grants and initiatives that promote gender ideology, remain in effect.

The decision comes in response to a lawsuit by activist groups who receive federal funding and support harmful DEI programs based on race and gender identity. The groups (the National Urban League, the National Fair Housing Alliance, and the AIDS Foundation of Chicago) had sued the Trump administration over the following executive orders:

  • EO No. 14151: Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Referencing
  • EO No. 14168: Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government
  • EO No. 14173: Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity

Do No Harm not only filed an amicus brief explaining how these executive orders target illegal discrimination and are well within the executive branch’s constitutional authority, but participated in oral arguments to defend the orders!

The plaintiffs, meanwhile, argued that these orders violated their First and Fifth Amendment rights, and moved for a preliminary injunction to block enforcement of the orders.

The court held otherwise, and denied their motion.

“The government need not subsidize the exercise of constitutional rights to avoid infringing them, and the Constitution does not provide a right to violate federal antidiscrimination law,” Judge Kelly wrote.

Additionally, the court held that the plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge provisions of the executive orders that only gave presidential directions to subordinate agencies. 

This is a massive win. The plaintiffs had effectively argued that efforts targeting illegal and discriminatory DEI practices were themselves illegal and violated their constitutional rights.

But as the court held, there is no right to racial discrimination.

Education Department Announces Major Reforms to Accreditation Process

The Department of Education on Thursday announced changes to the higher education accreditation process, making it easier for institutions of higher education to switch accreditors.

The reforms – communicated to universities and other institutions through a Dear Colleague Letter – come in response to President Trump’s executive order on accreditation.

That order, among other things, singled out medical accreditors like the Liaison Committee on Medical Education and the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education for imposing DEI requirements on medical schools.

The executive order was in turn influenced by Do No Harm’s report exposing education accreditors for injecting DEI mandates into their standards.

The Department of Education’s reforms include lifting a temporary moratorium that had been placed on accepting and reviewing applications for new accrediting agencies.

Additionally, the Department of Education will simplify the process of switching accreditors going forward, as well as review a greater number of potential new accrediting bodies.

Opening up the process by which new accreditors can be certified and approved is an important step toward limiting accreditors’ ability to inject DEI into higher education.

If accreditors lose their monopoly, then they have less leverage by which they can impose their particular ideological or political agenda on institutions of higher education.

Tackling accreditors’ political activism is essential to restore trust in medical schools and other institutions of higher education.

Arkansas Ditches Racial Quotas Following Do No Harm Lawsuit

Last month, Arkansas enacted a law to remove race and gender quotas from state boards and commissions.

The law was prompted, in part, by Do No Harm’s federal lawsuit challenging an Arkansas law that required racial quotas for certain government bodies.

As a result of the bill becoming law, Do No Harm voluntarily dismissed the lawsuit against Arkansas on Thursday. 

Previously, Arkansas’s law had imposed racial quotas on gubernatorial appointments to state licensing boards; for instance, requiring at least one member of the five-person Occupational Therapy Examining Committee to be a racial minority.

Do No Harm and the Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism had filed the lawsuit on behalf of two Arkansas natives who met the committee’s requirements but were excluded because they were not racial minorities.

This is a major victory, and Do No Harm applauds Arkansas lawmakers and Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders for taking action against racial discrimination.

Medical boards like the Occupational Therapy Examining Committee should be made up of the most qualified candidates to ensure that expertise is prioritized, and that the individuals in charge of critical decisions are the most deserving.

Racial quotas subvert merit and replace it with ideology.

With any luck, Minnesota will follow Arkansas’s lead.

Do No Harm had filed a lawsuit against the Minnesota Department of Health over the department advisory council’s discriminatory membership criteria.

Minnesota law requires the department’s Health Equity Advisory and Leadership Council to include representatives of certain racial and ethnic groups.

Following Do No Harm Lawsuit, Society of Military Orthopaedic Surgeons Eliminates Discriminatory Scholarship Program

RICHMOND, VA; May 1, 2025 – The Society of Military Orthopaedic Surgeons (SOMOS) ended a discriminatory scholarship following a lawsuit filed by Do No Harm in December 2024.

“We are pleased that the Society of Military Orthopaedic Surgeons has ended its discriminatory scholarship program,” said Stanley Goldfarb, MD, Chairman of Do No Harm. “Offering opportunities only to applicants who meet certain gender or racial requirements is against the law and harmful to the necessary objective of recruiting and training the most qualified healthcare providers. This should serve as a message to all medical institutions: If you are engaging in unlawful discrimination, we at Do No Harm will make sure you are held accountable.”

The E. Anthony Rankin Scholarship Program – administered by SOMOS in partnership with the U.S. Navy – was available only to applicants of an “underrepresented gender or racial background in orthopaedics.”

The now-ended SOMOS scholarship excluded and disfavored white medical students in violation of the U.S. Constitution and the Civil Rights Act of 1866.

The stipulation of dismissal states that the program was canceled for current and future cohorts, and if SOMOS revives the program it will be available to all students.

Click here to read the joint stipulation of dismissal.

Click here to read the original 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 17,000 members, including doctors, nurses, physicians, and concerned citizens across all 50 states and 14 countries, DNH has achieved over 10,000 media hits in top-tier publications and garnered widespread attention through numerous broadcast news appearances.

Do No Harm Issues Statement Supporting HHS Review of Sex Change Interventions for Children

RICHMOND, VA; May 1, 2025 – Today, Do No Harm, a medical watchdog group dedicated to removing identity politics from medicine, issued a statement of support for the report, “Treatment for Pediatric Gender Dysphoria: Review of Evidence and Best Practices,” published by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

“American children, especially those suffering from gender confusion, deserve better than to be used as a political pawn by gender activists. The Health and Human Services review of the scientific evidence and best practices in the treatment for pediatric gender dysphoria rightfully exposes a number of serious risks in the medical transition of young people,” said Stanley Goldfarb, MD, Chairman of Do No Harm. “The report cites a ‘lack of robust evidence’ for these medical procedures and most alarmingly finds that ‘WPATH suppressed systematic reviews its leaders believed would undermine its favored treatment approach.’ Do No Harm, its fellows, researchers, and members have been warning about the experimental and irreversible sex change interventions on children, and we are grateful and encouraged HHS is bringing needed scrutiny to the gender industry. It is clearer now more than ever that we must end this misguided practice and replace it with evidence-based treatment for gender confused kids.”

The HHS review concluded that:

  • “There was a rapid expansion and implementation of a clinical protocol that lacked sufficient scientific and ethical justification.”
  • “Second, when confronted with compelling evidence that this protocol did not deliver the health benefits it promised, and that other countries were changing their policies appropriately, U.S. medical professionals and associations failed to reconsider the “gender-affirming” approach.”
  • “Third, conflicting evidence—evidence that challenged the foundational assumptions of the protocol and the professional standing of its advocates—was mischaracterized or insufficiently acknowledged.”
  • “Finally, dissenting perspectives were marginalized, and those who voiced them were disparaged.”

Click here to read the FULL report.

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

Med School Partnership Runs Networking Event for ‘Underrepresented’ Students

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A medical education is an incredible gift, and opportunities should not be denied to students based on their particular background.

Yet the Alliance of Minority Physicians (AMP), an organization that works in partnership with Penn Medicine, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), and the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, appears to think otherwise.

AMP is promoting what it refers to as its “Pathways to Excellence in Medicine Initiative,” a series of events and mentorship opportunities that is explicitly geared toward “underrepresented” students.

AMP doesn’t define this term, but both the National Institutes of Health and Association of American Medical Colleges defined the term to essentially mean black and Hispanic students.

According to a flyer advertising the program’s “Med Immersion Day,” a networking fair for prospective physicians, the program is “Designed for URiM Medical Students Across Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley.”

Figure 1. A flyer advertising the Pathways to Excellence Med Immersion Day.

“MS1-MS3s across Philadelphia from backgrounds underrepresented in medicine are invited to join us for this immersive experience!” a website advertising the event read. “You will have the opportunity to network with Penn/CHOP residency programs, engage in interactive programming tailored to your year in training, and be inspired by an exciting keynote speaker.”

Helping the next generation of physicians gain the skills and knowledge they require in order to be successful in their careers is a laudable goal that helps both medical students and their future patients alike. 

But when this guidance is conditioned on an applicant’s “underrepresented” status, it inherently discriminates against future medical professionals on the basis of immutable characteristics. 

Indeed, the immersion event’s green “register” button explicitly required applicants to identify their race and underrepresented group.

Figure 2. Screenshot of the AMP registration survey.

In addition to the “Pathways to Excellence in Medicine Initiative,” there is also a visiting clerkship program, the “Visiting Clerkship Program for Students Underrepresented in Medicine,” that provides stipends and rotation opportunities to selected students.

Earlier this year, Do No Harm sued Penn Medicine, the Consortium of DEI Health Educators, and WURD Radio for their Black Doctors Directory, which illegally excluded non-black doctors.

And previously, in 2023, Do No Harm reported that the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania required a political litmus test littered with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)-based principles as part of its job application process. 

Do No Harm also previously filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights against the school for requiring participants in a medical education program to be from a particular racial or ethnic background; the school took just a handful of months to scrub their website and reverse course.

The sooner programs like these are scrutinized and quickly cast away, the better.

Do No Harm Announces the Election of Two New Board Members

RICHMOND, VA; April 30, 2025 –Today, Do No Harm announced the addition of two new members to its board of directors. Dr. Richard Bosshardt is a Florida-based plastic surgeon with over forty years of medical experience. Dr. Soumi Eachempati is a former professor of surgery and public health at Weill Cornell Medical College, as well as a health technology entrepreneur.

“We are excited to welcome Dr. Bosshardt and Dr. Eachempati as the newest members of the Do No Harm Board of Directors,” said Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, Chairman at Do No Harm. “These two men bring a wealth of experience and expertise from their respective backgrounds as medical professionals. Their wisdom and guidance will strengthen our organization as we work to protect patients from the disastrous consequences of identity politics.”

Do No Harm’s members elected Dr. Bosshardt to the board of directors in Do No Harm’s first-ever member-wide board election.

“I am delighted to have been elected to serve on the Board of Do No Harm,” said Dr. Richard Bosshardt. “It is an honor and a privilege that I humbly accept. Since I first joined Do No Harm within months of its launch, first as a Visiting Fellow, then as a Senior Fellow, I have received invaluable support and encouragement in my fight with the American College of Surgeons regarding its embrace of DEI. I have watched Do No Harm grow in size, scope, and influence while staying true to its mission to restore Hippocratic medicine, push back against DEI and gender-affirming care in minors, and restore a focus on merit and excellence in our profession. I am proud to serve such an honorable and effective organization and will do my utmost to justify my election to the Board.”

“Due to a variety of the reasons, the practice of medicine has become increasingly complicated,” said Dr. Soumi Eachempati. “Concurrently, the quality of medical education has been gradually deteriorating as medical schools have been infiltrated with secondary ideologies that obscure the mission of actually teaching critical aspects of medical care. After observing these changes in medical education over my thirty years in medicine as a student, practitioner, and educator, I was pleased to learn about the efforts of Do No Harm and even more pleased at the opportunity to support its important cause of making healthcare better for all.”

Dr. Richard Bosshardt is a Senior Fellow at Do No Harm and a recently-retired plastic surgeon of 47 years, with 35 years in private practice. He has been active in pushing back against so-called “gender-affirming care” in minors, critical race theory, and DEI in medicine. Having seen the divisive effects of identity politics both personally and professionally, he is committed to eliminating it from the medical profession.

Dr. Soumi Eachempati is a surgeon, entrepreneur, and former hedge fund analyst. He started his distinguished career at Weill Cornell Medical College where he rose to the rank of Professor of Surgery and Public Health and was named Director of Trauma Services and the Surgical ICU. During this time, he performed over 5,000 operations and authored over 200 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters. He was elected the President of the New York State Chapter of the American College of Surgeons and was also named to the national Board of Governors of the American College of Surgeons. His entrepreneurial experience includes founding a company specializing in clinical applications and another company that facilitated safe reentry for businesses and schools during the first year of the COVID pandemic.

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