CMS Rolls Back ‘Health Equity’ Mandates in Cancer Treatment Payment Model

It’s another win for fairness in medicine.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is rolling back its requirements for participants in a Medicaid payment program known as the Enhancing Oncology Model (EOM), according to the American Journal of Managed Care (AJMC).

The EOM is a payment model for clinicians caring for Medicare patients with certain common cancer types; it provides practices with a monthly payment per patient.

However, pursuant to the Biden administration’s “health equity” executive order, practices would be required to submit health equity plans in order to participate in the EOM.

That requirement has now been rolled back, according to the AJMC. Instead, CMS has sent revised agreements to EOM practices stating that health equity plans are no longer mandatory.

“CMS will not require or accept submissions of health equity plans in EOM for 2025 and beyond, which was a previous requirement for the program,” Lalan Wilfong, MD, senior vice president for value-based care at Thyme Care, told the AJMC.

CMS made this change “to comply with Executive Order 14151 and Executive Order 14168, effective January 20, 2025,” Wilfong told the AJMC, in this context referencing one of President Trump’s executive orders targeting DEI in the federal government.

This is a much-welcome change; it’s deeply disturbing to require practices to swear fealty to the DEI ideology before funding their efforts to treat cancer patients.

It’s also a welcome sign that CMS is unwinding the toxic DEI agenda that CMS had promoted under the prior administration.

For instance, in April 2022, CMS issued a proposed rule for inpatient and long-term hospitals, forcing them to report information on patient race, ethnicity, income, geographic location, sexual orientation, and gender identity. 

This information could then be used to financially reward or punish healthcare providers based on their adherence to identity politics. Do No Harm urged the public to comment on the rule in July 2022, and submitted comments later that month raising the alarm about the rule’s potential for abuse.

In 2023, CMS proposed two rules that would modify quality reporting programs for skilled nursing facilities and cancer hospitals, respectively. These reporting programs use payment incentives and payment reductions to ensure facilities are providing adequate care.

However, the modifications instead promote the concept of “health equity” once again by including a health equity scoring system in the quality reporting guidelines. This encourages providers to promote health equity, which in practice is essentially racial discrimination. The finalized version of the rules went into effect later in 2023.

Do No Harm applauds this recent CMS action, and welcomes future efforts to roll back the “health equity” agenda.

Trump Administration Moves to Hold Accreditors Accountable for Pushing Racial Discrimination

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Today, President Trump issued an executive order targeting accreditors for injecting discriminatory DEI ideology into medical education. 

The order, titled Reforming Accreditation to Strengthen Higher Education, empowers the Secretary of Education to “hold accountable, including through denial, monitoring, suspension, or termination of accreditation recognition, accreditors” who promote discriminatory DEI programs.

The order explicitly singles out medical education accreditors and medical schools, empowering federal agencies to “investigate and take appropriate action to terminate unlawful discrimination by American medical schools or graduate medical education entities that is advanced by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education or the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education or other accreditors of graduate medical education.” 

The order further expands on its decision to target medical education accreditors, recounting their discriminatory requirements and mandates.

The Liaison Committee on Medical Education, which is the only federally recognized body that accredits Doctor of Medicine degree programs, requires that an institution “engage[] in ongoing, systematic, and focused recruitment and retention activities, to achieve mission-appropriate diversity outcomes among its students.” The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, which is the sole accreditor for both allopathic and osteopathic medical residency and fellowship programs, similarly “expect[s]” institutions to focus on implementing “policies and procedures related to recruitment and retention of individuals underrepresented in medicine,” including “racial and ethnic minority individuals.”  The standards for training tomorrow’s doctors should focus solely on providing the highest quality care, and certainly not on requiring unlawful discrimination.

“We applaud President Trump for taking this crucial first step towards dismantling accrediting bodies’ divisive influence over medical schools,” said Stanley Goldfarb, MD, Chairman of Do No Harm.

“By promoting accreditors’ accountability, the executive order gets rid of schools’ pretext for pushing discriminatory programs themselves,” said Dr. Goldfarb. “This is a great step towards restoring integrity to American healthcare.”

The executive order follows on the heels of Do No Harm’s report exposing education accreditors for injecting DEI mandates into their standards.

Do No Harm’s report identified 10 accrediting bodies for graduate medical and healthcare education programs that reference the value of “diversity” in their accreditation standards and/or impose DEI requirements on the programs they accredit. These standards range from explicit requirements to maintain DEI offices and programs to more indirect encouragement of efforts to achieve certain diversity-related outcomes.

Moreover, the order follows legislation recently introduced in Congress by U.S. Representative Burgess Owens. That legislation, known as the ACE Act, prohibits accreditors from mandating colleges adhere to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) standards as a condition of accreditation.

For the future of medical education to be protected, it’s essential that accreditors cannot impose their own ideological agenda onto medical schools.

New Report Reveals Depths of HHS’s Discriminatory Funding Initiatives

A new report from the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) identified dozens of programs and initiatives operated by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that explicitly discriminate based on race or otherwise encourage racial discrimination.

The report, titled “55 HHS Federal Funding Initiatives Discriminate Based on Race,” catalogs various HHS programs that distribute grant funding based on race or encourage grant recipients to put in place policies targeted at specific racial groups.

These programs include the so-called “Centers of Excellence” or “COE” program directed toward “underrepresented minority individuals.”

The COE program distributes grants to health professional schools and nonprofits for the purpose of implementing practices and policies to assist racial and ethnic minorities.

“Among numerous other race-based requirements for recipient schools, schools must agree to use funding to establish, strengthen, and expand programs to support the academic performance of underrepresented minority students,” the report states.

The report also identified racially discriminatory scholarship programs, such as the Scholarship for Disadvantaged Students (SDS).

The SDS program distributes scholarships to “eligible individual[s]” who are “from a disadvantaged background,” “including students who are members of racial and ethnic minority groups.”

Moreover, the report also highlighted the Nursing Workforce Diversity or NWD program, which was the subject of a recent Do No Harm report.

The NWD program funds nursing education programs, conditioning funding on recipients establishing methods to increase the enrollment of “racial and ethnic minorities” and other “underrepresented” groups. And the program was accepting applications as recently as March 18, 2025.

Prioritizing certain racial groups for funding opportunities is cut-and-dry discrimination.

Taxpayers should not be facilitating racially discriminatory practices and programs, plain and simple.

NIH Puts Universities on Notice: End DEI Programs or Lose Grant Funding

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) issued a notice Monday, updating the conditions of its grant awards to make clear that universities and other research institutions who engage in discriminatory practices will lose out on grant funding.

“NIH reserves the right to terminate financial assistance awards and recover all funds if recipients, during the term of this award, operate any program in violation of Federal anti-discriminatory laws or engage in a prohibited boycott,” the notice reads.

“Prohibited boycott” in this context refers to boycotts of Israeli companies or companies doing business with Israel. 

Additionally, the conditions ensure that recipients do not and will not operate DEI programs that violate federal law.

“By accepting the grant award, recipients are certifying that: […] They do not, and will not during the term of this financial assistance award, operate any programs that advance or promote DEI, DEIA, or discriminatory equity ideology in violation of Federal anti-discrimination laws; and [they] do not engage in and will not during the term of this award engage in a discriminatory prohibited boycott,” the terms read.

This is a crucial step toward ridding medical education of the pernicious and pervasive ideology of DEI. 

As Do No Harm has repeatedly documented, the NIH’s use of DEI requirements in grant funding prior to the Trump administration was a chief contributor to DEI and racial discrimination in the medical field.

For instance, the NIH previously had in place its Plan for Enhancing Diverse Perspectives (PEDP) requirement that mandated applicants for certain grants include a document outlining how their research will advance diversity and inclusivity, e.g. through including researchers from “historically underrepresented” backgrounds.

Additionally, numerous grant programs at medical schools that are backed by the NIH blatantly discriminate against applicants on the basis of race.

The notice also follows on the heels of President Trump’s executive order earlier this year directing federal agencies to eliminate DEI language and discriminatory practices in the federal contracting and grantmaking process.

Divisive and discriminatory practices, policies, and ideologies have no place in the medical field. This action is essential for restoring the values of excellence and merit in medical education.

Lewis Katz School of Medicine Changes Tune After Being Caught Red-Handed

The Lewis Katz School of Medicine (LKSOM) at Temple University has elected to remove exclusionary language from its public advertisement of an event for “women faculty” – motivated, in all likelihood, by the efforts of Do No Harm.

LKSOM is hosting a May 16 “workshop” through its Status of Women Faculty committee that will feature “engaging sessions on advocacy and empowerment,” according to a flyer advertising the event. The event will “culminate in the announcement of the 2025 Women in Medicine and Science Mentoring Award recipients,” referring to an annual award recognizing faculty members for their work advancing the professional success of women at LKSOM.

But note the exclusionary language in the fine print and event description: “Join fellow LKSOM women faculty” and “A workshop for LKSOM women faculty.”

Figure 1. The original flyer distributed by LKSOM featuring exclusionary language.

In response, Do No Harm filed a complaint with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, sending a courtesy copy to Temple’s and LKSOM’s leadership warning the school that the exclusionary language violates Title IX’s prohibition of sex discrimination for institutions that accept federal funding.   

It appears that Temple and LKSOM got the message.

Conspicuously absent from the new flyer advertising the event is the exclusionary language restricting the event to only “women faculty.”

Figure 2. The second flyer distributed by LKSOM with the exclusionary language removed.

On one hand, it’s encouraging that LKSOM is now complying with federal civil right laws.

But on the other hand, it should not be incumbent on watchdogs like Do No Harm to alert rogue institutions of their legal obligations, and it shouldn’t take the threat of a legal challenge to bring about this mandatory compliance.

It sure looks like LKSOM was simply caught red-handed and is now attempting to control the fallout. And it’s especially disingenuous that LKSOM portrayed its unlawful planned discrimination as just an honest mistake by adding the statement “As always, all are welcome” to the new flyer.

In reality, “all were not welcome” at LKSOM’s event until Do No Harm challenged its flagrant violation of federal civil rights laws.

UT Austin Slapped with Civil Rights Lawsuit for Race-Based STEM Program 

The American Alliance for Equal Rights (AAER) sued the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) on Monday over its research program, “Black epiSTEMologies,” which aims to “foster racial equity in STEM for all Black people.”

The lawsuit alleges the program – which is funded by the National Science Foundation – violates the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by excluding non-black students from the program. 

According to the lawsuit, the program asks students to explore their “conceptions of Blackness … as it relates to their STEM engagement and perspectives of racial equity in STEM.” Additionally, the program pays students who meet its eligibility criteria a $40 gift card to complete a survey and participate in a focus group.

However, the lawsuit alleges that the program is only open to students who identify as black or biracial with at least one black parent, excluding students from all other racial backgrounds.

“This is one of the most shockingly discriminatory programs this organization has ever encountered,” said AAER president Edward Blum. “UT-Austin is openly violating the Constitution and federal civil rights laws by paying students for their time and insights – but only if they are a specific race.”

“Federal dollars should never be used to segregate students or promote exclusionary racial practices,” Blum added. “UT Austin’s conduct is an affront to equal protection and basic decency. It is frustrating and puzzling why UT’s administration and the Board of Regents did not end this blatantly discriminatory program long ago.”

It’s also worth noting that the state of Texas prohibits public universities from having policies or programs “promoting differential treatment of or providing special benefits to individuals on the basis of race, color, or ethnicity.”

Unfortunately, as Do No Harm has documented over the years, the existence of legal barriers doesn’t always deter bigotry and discrimination, and oversight and enforcement is often required. 

Do No Harm also recently identified instances of divisive practices and policies elsewhere in the UT system: UT Southwestern’s Department of Surgery maintains a “structural disadvantage curriculum” (SDC) that was funded in 2022 by a grant from the American College of Surgeons to bankroll “innovative and impactful research projects and programs addressing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), and anti-racism issues.”

AAER’s lawsuit is critical to ensure UT adheres to federal law and ends its discriminatory behavior.

Motor City Malfeasance: Henry Ford Health Operates Discriminatory Scholarships

Earlier this week, Detroit hospital system Henry Ford Health was the subject of a scathing report by nonprofit watchdog Consumers’ Research highlighting the hospital’s DEI policies.

The report identified numerous instances of DEI at Henry Ford Health, including the use of “unconscious bias training,” its “supplier diversity” policy which prioritizes working with businesses that are at least “51% owned by LGBTQ+ persons or certain minority categories,” and various public statements avowing support for DEI.

But that’s not all.

A deep dive into Henry Ford Health’s various initiatives reveals the system operates scholarships targeted toward certain racial groups.

For instance, Henry Ford Health operates a program (spearheaded by the Emergency Medicine Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee) providing students interested in emergency medicine with $1,500 in scholarship funds. A prerequisite for the Underrepresented in Medicine Scholarship Program for Visiting Students, however, is that students “identify as a member of a group that is underrepresented in medicine.”

Henry Ford Health doesn’t define “underrepresented” explicitly, but notes that it refers to “racial and ethnic minorities, LGBTQI-identified or gender nonconforming individuals, individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds, and those with special needs.”

Additionally, Henry Ford Health sponsors the Clinical Excellence through Diversity Scholarship, which provides recipients with “priority access to our student rotations and $1,500 for travel, lodging, and other expenses associated with participating in the visiting rotation.”

Again, one of the prerequisites for this program is that students “identify as a member of a group that is underrepresented in medicine.”

And in yet another example, the listing for a scholarship for prospective urology residents (which has since be taken down) not only required students to “identify as a member of a group that is underrepresented in medicine” but required them to have “an interest and commitment to fostering activities related to healthcare diversity, health inequities, or serving underserved populations.”

These listings, coupled with the revelations from Consumers’ Research, reveal a deep institutional commitment to DEI explicitly affirmed by the hospital in its statement that DEI is “woven into the fabric of everything we do.”

However, according to Fox News, Henry Ford Health deleted several sections of its website that dealt with DEI after Fox News reached out for comment on their story about the Consumers’ Research report.

Perhaps Henry Ford Health is realizing that divisive and discriminatory ideology is not the best advertisement for an institution ostensibly concerned with providing quality healthcare.

Following Do No Harm Lawsuit, National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians Agrees to Revise Discriminatory Scholarship

RICHMOND, VA; April 17, 2025 – Today, the National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians (NAEMT) agreed to remove racial requirements and preferences from its formerly discriminatory scholarship. Do No Harm sued NAEMT in January 2024 on behalf of a student who was excluded from the scholarship because of her race.

“We are pleased that the National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians is removing race-based requirements from its scholarship,” said Dr. Jared Ross, Senior Fellow at Do No Harm. “By prioritizing merit and expertise over racist identity politics, we can restore integrity to medicine and improve patient safety. Do No Harm continues to fight on behalf of its members in the courts and state capitols across this country, and this victory sends a clear message to other medical organizations that promote bias that we will not tolerate discriminatory practices or programs anywhere in medicine.”

NAEMT’s “Diversity Scholarship” awarded $1,250 to students to be used for tuition, fees, and books; however, the eligibility criteria stated that scholarships “will be awarded to students of color.” Other students were excluded based on their race.

The scholarship was illegal under federal law, including 42 U.S.C. Section 1981, which “protects the equal rights of all persons … to make and enforce contracts without respect to race.”

NAEMT agreed to remove “any eligibility requirement or preference based on applicants’ race or ethnicity” from the Diversity Scholarship after the district court ruled that Do No Harm stated a valid claim of racial discrimination under federal law.

To see the joint stipulation of dismissal, click here.

To see the original lawsuit, click here.

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 16,000 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.

Arizona’s Merit-Based Hiring Bill Moves Closer to Becoming Law

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An Arizona bill, SB 1584, would prohibit state and local governments from imposing hiring policies that consider factors other than a candidate’s merit. The Arizona House approved the bill in a vote Tuesday; it had already passed the Senate last month.

In effect, the bill would prevent state governments from considering an applicant’s race, or using strategies that are roundabout ways of practicing race-conscious hiring. Now, Arizona’s  governor has a decision to make on whether to sign it or oppose it.

Additionally, government agencies would be prohibited from manipulating or influencing  “the composition of employees with reference to race, ethnicity, sex or national origin except to ensure color-blind and race-neutral hiring.” 

This addresses so-called “diversity” hiring practices that seek to increase racial diversity among employees, often without explicit admissions of racial discrimination.

The bill tackles a pernicious problem present in states across the country; state boards and agencies implement so-called “diversity” policies that effectively create racial quota systems in order to achieve the desired racial composition of a particular government body.

These policies are particularly damaging in the healthcare and medical fields, in which merit is essential to prevent harm and save lives. Do No Harm has even filed several lawsuits against state governments and government agencies over policies imposing racial requirements for state healthcare and medical bodies.

Overt racial discrimination in hiring is, of course, illegal, but these end-arounds have proliferated in recent years as DEI ideology has increased in prominence.

More Race Concordance Falsities

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The medical establishment is arguably the center of resistance to President Trump’s rollback of “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” While federal agencies and private companies alike are responding to the President’s actions by ditching DEI, medical schools, providers, and associations remain stubbornly committed to this divisive ideology.

The medical establishment argues that DEI – especially a diverse healthcare workforce – is critical for patient care. For example, the Association of American Medical Colleges insists that patients from groups “underrepresented in medicine” (i.e. black or Hispanic) benefit when patients can see doctors who share their skin color – a de facto form of segregation known as race concordant care.

But this claim is fallacious. Do No Harm recently discovered through a FOIA request that the study that forms the lynchpin of race concordance hysteria was produced by “scholars” who candidly admit to concealing certain data because they would “undermine the narrative” about “saving black infants.”

While the candor and lack of academic integrity among the researchers of that study is shocking, dishonesty and activism are the norm when race concordance is involved. The latest ideologically-driven, concocted attempt to peddle concordant care as a solution to health disparities comes via a recent systematic review published in the Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities. 

Systematic reviews can be a useful technique for aggregating evidence on a topic and then making a judgement based on the weight of the evidence. Five of six previous systematic reviews on racially concordant care concluded that it has no health benefits, while the one that purported to observe evidence of benefit was fraught with methodological problems. 

But this systematic review is unique from the others in that it only examines medication adherence as an outcome. Such a review could be valuable if properly executed. Unfortunately, it turns out to be woke agitprop.

The researchers identify five studies that fit the scope of the review. In describing those studies, the review claims that four observed better medication adherence among “BIPOC” (black, indigenous, and people of color) patients in concordant dyads. Based on these claims, the review concludes that race concordance is beneficial.

The description of the five studies is plainly inaccurate. Two of the studies – one by Adamson et al. (2017) and one by Traylor et al. (2010) – observe evidence of benefit for black patients, though not for Hispanic patients. Two other studies – one by Schoenthaler et al. (2012) and one by Schoenthaler et al. (2014) – only examined black patients and did not observe any benefit.

The fifth study was authored by Nguyen et al. (2020). The study was profiled in a Do No Harm report about methodological issues in studies that are regularly cited in defense of DEI. As the critique notes, “The sample’s demographics are not spelled out and results are not disaggregated by racial group. The authors could be hiding that the findings are not statistically significant when the analysis is limited to groups ‘underrepresented in medicine.’” The systematic review describes the outcome as “adherence increased for all races,” but this claim can’t possibly be inferred from the information provided in the Nguyen study. 

In total, then, two studies in the systematic review observe a race concordant benefit for black patients and two do not. The two studies that include Hispanic patients do not observe any benefit, while the Nguyen study obfuscates which groups benefit. The systematic review’s conclusion that “Four studies found that patient-provider race concordance was associated with higher cardiovascular and dermatological medication adherence rates in BIPOC patients” is plainly fictional. An honest review of the literature would reasonably conclude that evidence is mixed or inconclusive. 

So why all the dishonesty around race concordance? Because the idea of matching patients and physicians by race is essential to validating continued DEI efforts in medicine. If concordant care is seen as beneficial, then racial preferences in medical school admissions are simply a matter of “following the science.” Similarly, the concordance hypothesis would help justify efforts to train doctors on “implicit bias” by implicating the alleged bigotry of Asian and white doctors when it comes to health disparities.

As the Schoenthaler et al. (2014) study observes, trust is important for medication adherence. The medical establishment is sacrificing trust on the altar of identity politics. Americans can see through the charade. And so should the Trump administration, which could easily call out – and pressure – the medical establishment for maintaining a DEI edifice that’s built on a foundation of lies.

Audit Reveals How Wisconsin State Gov, University System is Injecting DEI Into Medicine

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This month, the Wisconsin Legislative Audit Bureau released two reports detailing the extent of the state government and university system’s engagement in DEI initiatives. 

The audits cataloged the various DEI initiatives of state agencies and the University of Wisconsin system, and revealed how these institutions have promoted DEI or engaged in activities that appear to be potentially discriminatory.

The audit focusing on 24 of the Wisconsin state government’s agencies found that the state’s Department of Health Services (DHS) had listed 51 total actions related to advancing DEI in its Equity and Inclusion “action plans” since 2021.

These plans included recruiting and retention efforts aimed at increasing diversity, such as through expanding “recruitment resources by targeting marginalized college students and individuals from diverse backgrounds” and featuring “diversity-driven content on job postings.”

Moreover, as part of the action plans, DHS would “develop an internship program for individuals of diverse backgrounds,” “establish a mentorship/leadership program for staff who identify as marginalized individuals,” and “identify or develop unconscious bias training for leadership positions.”

Additionally, DHS created an Office of Health Equity to support these initiatives.

“The Office of Health Equity in the Department of Health Services supports diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, and health equity efforts,” the audit reads. “This Office had eight permanent positions that we included in our analysis.”

The audit of the University of Wisconsin system, meanwhile, found that the state’s publicly-funded educational institutions are promoting and engaging in DEI activity. The bulk of these initiatives were operated through the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison) campus.

These include anti-racism initiatives, something called the “Trans Counseling Advocacy Research and Education Collaborative,” and hiring policies aimed at increasing diversity.

Several other initiatives, however, are considerably more incendiary.

For instance, the UW-Madison Student National Medical Association chapter created a local White Coats for Black Lives chapter, which the audit says “aims to eliminate racial bias in the practice of medicine.”

White Coats for Black Lives is a medical student organization that as Do No Harm previously reported defended individuals who praised the October 7th terrorist attacks on Israel.

Additionally, the UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health launched the “Building Equitable Access to Mentorship initiative” that “matches faculty and first-year incoming medical students from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds.”

The Building Equitable Access to Mentorship or BEAM program appears to be explicitly discriminatory as it only mentions opportunities for individuals deemed to be members of “underrepresented” racial groups. Selected scholars even receive a stipend through the program.

And lastly, the UW School of Medicine and Public Health department chairs are subjected to an “anti-racism” curriculum.

The results of this audit confirm an uncomfortable and disturbing truth: all too often, state governments and publicly-funded institutions are the ones responsible for injecting DEI into healthcare and medical education.

Simply put, taxpayers should not be on the hook for these divisive and discriminatory programs.

Saint Louis University School of Medicine Does a DEI Detox

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In 2023, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) opened an investigation into Saint Louis University (SLU) School of Medicine over its discriminatory Scholarship Program for Visiting Medical Students Underrepresented in Medicine.

The program required applicants to “identify as a member of a group underrepresented in medicine” (URiM), citing the previous Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) definition of URiM to include “students who identify as African Americans and/or Black, Hispanic/Latino, Native American (American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians), Pacific Islander, and mainland Puerto Rican.”

In response to the investigation, SLU dropped the racial criteria from the program; in fact, the program’s web page now redirects to SLU’s “Resident Diversity” web page.

Now, however, it appears the medical school has gone a step further.

The school’s entire Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion web page, active as recently as September 2024, redirects to a new web page for its Office of Ignatian Mission in Medicine. 

SLU’s Office of the Ignatian Mission is dedicated to establishing initiatives to “reduce health inequities and improve the health and well-being” of the local community, as well as creating a “culturally competent healthcare workforce.”

Additionally, as recently as January of this year, SLU advertised an initiative called the “Summer Undergraduate Research Program Pilot for Students Underrepresented in Medicine.” The program’s eligibility criteria don’t explicitly mention race, although the program does aim to “improve the recruitment and retention of students who are underrepresented in medicine.”

The link, however, now also redirects to the school’s web page for its Office of Ignatian Mission in Medicine. 

Also redirected to the Ignatian Mission web page is the information page for the John Berry Meachum Scholarship, which was targeted at “disadvantaged” students.

However, many DEI resources still remain; as mentioned, the Resident Diversity web page is still active, and contains a link to the application form for the Department of Psychiatry Scholarship Program for Visiting Medical Students.

That form includes a section for the applicant to list their “Ethnicity/Race/Underrepresented Member Self-Description.”

Another page which is still up is the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion’s (ODEI) Fall 2020 announcement discussing SLU’s various DEI plans.

“The ODEI has bold ideas for fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion at the School of Medicine, and among students, faculty, staff and the community,” the announcement reads. “Among the initiatives are intentional leadership decisions and staffing patterns, training and professional development, increased scholarships and opportunities for minority students and faculty, and events, forums, and lecture series that address relevant issues.”

Numerous medical schools have scrubbed their websites of certain divisive DEI content in recent months, deleting links to their DEI initiatives and altering offensive language.

But it’s important to maintain perspective.

Are these efforts genuine, good-faith shifts in institutional priorities? Or are they simply rebrands intended to remove conspicuous evidence of DEI activity while the medical school continues to engage in divisive or even discriminatory behavior?

We’d like to think it’s the former.

Cook County Health’s Residency Recruitment Strategy: Racial Discrimination

The medical residency is an essential part of physician education, enabling medical students to continue their training with hands-on experience. As such, residency positions can be highly coveted.

Yet Cook County Health’s Emergency Medicine residency program uses recruiting tactics that indicate it prefers certain racial groups to snag these spots.

Take CCH’s Diversity Externship Scholarship, which provides selected medical students with an opportunity to work at its facilities as well as a $1,000 stipend for expenses.

According to the scholarship’s eligibility criteria, only “[m]edical students in their 4th year of training from a traditionally underrepresented ethnicity (African American, Latino, Native American/Alaska Native, Pacific Islander/Native Hawaiian), gender identification, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic status” can apply.

This is a cut-and-dry example of racial discrimination.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

In response to a public records request from Do No Harm, CCH provided its protocol for dealing with applicants based on their race.

“Applicants who self-identify as either underrepresented (as defined by the AAMC to include African American, Hispanic or Latino, and Native American applicants) or female in their official […] applications are contacted by our residents via telephone in the winter of their application year to ensure that they have no residual questions regarding the experiences of representative residents within our residency program,” CCH stated.

This might not seem that consequential, but when coupled with CCH’s explicitly discriminatory scholarship program, it reflects a deeply-embedded commitment to racial preferences.

And this commitment is further evident in CCH’s own description of its discriminatory initiatives; Do No Harm obtained a letter sent from CCH to the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) regarding the accreditation status of its Emergency Medicine program.

Among other things, the letter listed the CCH Emergency Medicine residency program’s diversity activities.

“The program continues to sponsor three diversity scholarships for visiting fourth year

medical students annually,” the letter stated, referring to the Diversity Externship Scholarship.

Additionally, “the program continues to sponsor monthly informal in person recruitment dinners targeted specifically to visiting URM and female medical students and hosts annual virtual informational sessions specifically for interested URM and female applicants.”

“URM” in this context refers to students “underrepresented in medicine” which CCH previously defined as including individuals who are African American, Latino, Native American/Alaska Native, and/or Pacific Islander/Native Hawaiian.

But CCH’s discriminatory behavior doesn’t stop there; the program “continues to host call-back sessions for our interview applicants who identify as URM, female, or LGBTQ+,” and “continues to promote residents from underrepresented groups into leadership positions, with 3 of the 4 incoming chief residents identifying as female, one as African American, and one as a member of the LGBTQ+ community.”

Simply put, CCH is engaging in clear racial favoritism. 

This practice is unethical and contrary to the foundational principles of medical ethics.

SIU School of Medicine’s Race-Based Recruitment Plans

The Southern Illinois University School of Medicine has a simple strategy to recruit students and faculty: target certain racial groups.

As part of its “diversity and inclusion” initiatives, SIU unveiled several plans aimed at recruiting students, staff, and faculty deemed to be “underrepresented” in medicine. These plans date back over a decade, indicating SIU’s lengthy commitment to discriminatory recruiting practices.

As stated in its Minority Faculty Recruitment Plan: “The School will recruit, retain, and advance a student body, faculty, and staff reflective of the diversity of the region served by the medical school. A diverse faculty includes individuals from traditionally underrepresented in medicine groups (African-Americans, Latinos, Native- American Indians, Alaskans Natives, Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders) as well as women.”

The plan requires that all faculty hires have  “Job Descriptions written specifically to include wording that addresses the need for underrepresented minorities,” as well as “Search Committees (when appropriate) with at least one member from an underrepresented minority group.”

Additionally, minority faculty hires “will be assigned a Mentor who will orient them to the School.” 

The Minority Staff Recruitment Plan imposes similar requirements.

For what it’s worth, the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) previously defined “underrepresented minority” as an individual from the “Black, Mexican-American, Native American (American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian), and mainland Puerto Rican populations.”

Meanwhile, SIU also maintains its Hispanic Student Recruitment Plan, which, predictably, is aimed at increasing enrollment of Hispanic students.

The plan states that all Hispanic student applicants will be “Screened by Admissions personnel and have their Underrepresented in Medicine (UIM) status noted”; “Interviewed by a veteran member of the Admissions Committee and (whenever possible) by a faculty member who is of Hispanic heritage”; and “Presented to the Admissions Committee by an individual who understands the Recruitment Plan and its UIM focus.”

This reckless, ideological pursuit of “diversity” and other DEI concepts is further reflected in SIU’s DEI programming.

For instance, SIU’s Health Equity Scholar Pathway matches participants with a “Health Equity mentor” as professional learning takes place in several identified program areas, including “literary research in anti-oppressive medical practices.” Upon completion of the program, the SIU School of Medicine will place the “Health Equity Scholar” distinction on residency applications via the ERAS system, the AAMC’s centralized online application service for residency programs. 

Just last month, SIU sponsored a lecture on “health equity” with the University of Illinois Springfield’s Institute for Race, Gender, Sexuality, and Social Justice.

SIU may seem like a small, sleepy medical school in rural Illinois, but it has fully embraced a toxic and regressive ideology that corrodes the pillars of merit and excellence holding up the foundation of medicine.

Do No Harm Supports the ACE Act Introduced by Rep. Burgess Owens

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RICHMOND, VA; April 9, 2025 – Today, Do No Harm issued a statement of support for the Accreditation for College Excellence (ACE) Act introduced by U.S. Representative Burgess Owens (R-Utah). The ACE Act prohibits accreditors from mandating colleges adhere to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) standards as a condition of accreditation.

“The Accreditation for College Excellence Act would ensure medical schools focus on arming our future doctors with the knowledge and skills to provide the best medical care,” said Stanley Goldfarb, M.D., Chairman of Do No Harm. “We commend Congressman Owens and his colleagues for exposing political activists posing as accreditors mandating discriminatory DEI policies that corrupt the true purpose of medical education. It is plain common sense to prioritize academic excellence and freedom in higher education so that American students are trained without bias or discrimination.”

“For too long, activist accreditors have weaponized the accreditation process to push far-left ideology, pressuring colleges to submit to ideological tests that have nothing to do with education,” said Representative Burgess Owens. “The result: DEI mandates, CRT programs, and a culture that divides students by race instead of uniting them through merit. The ACE Act puts an end to this nonsense and ensures that institutions of higher education focus on academic standards—not politics.”

The ACE Act:

  • Requires accreditors to confirm their standards do not require, encourage, or coerce an institution to support or oppose specific partisan or political beliefs, viewpoints on social or political issues, or support the disparate treatment of any individual or group;
  • Prohibits accreditors from assessing an institution’s commitment to any ideology, belief, or viewpoint for the purposes of receiving accreditation;
  • Protects a college’s religious mission and ability to require adherence to religious practices or codes of conduct;
  • Ensures that an accreditor cannot require, encourage, or coerce an institution to violate any right protected by the Constitution; and
  • Limits accreditors from adopting any additional standards for accreditation.

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 16,000 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.

Medical College of Wisconsin Has More Clean-Up on Aisle DEI

The Medical College of Wisconsin (MCW) appears to be in clean-up mode.

Within the last month or so, MCW has scrubbed, renamed, or rebranded much of the resources and pages on its website dedicated to DEI. For instance, its web page previously dedicated to the Office of Diversity and Inclusion now redirects to the MCW homepage.

The page previously contained links to MCW’s DEI activities, as well as statements justifying the DEI office’s existence.

“There are many dimensions of difference, but diversity scholars suggest key dimensions of human and social difference, called the ‘Big 8’, present persisting challenges and opportunities to organizations,” one statement read. “The dimensions found among MCW’s people and stakeholders include race/ethnicity, gender/gender identity, sexual orientation, geographic origin/nationality, mental/physical (dis)ability status, religion, age, and role and functional/military background.”

Moreover, its page advertising the Visiting Student Health Equity Program – Clinical Rotation Award now redirects to the MCW homepage.

Among the other pages deleted is the President’s Inclusive Excellence Award, and the MCW Cancer Center’s DEI page.

However, MCW’s rebrand appears to be incomplete; several pages dedicated to DEI concepts remain. 

For instance, MCW’s “Institute for Health and Equity” page is still up, but the underlying institution appears to have been renamed the Institute for Health & Humanity. An archived webpage from October 2024 still bears the name “Health and Equity.”

Additionally, a page advertising a 2022 DEI info session remains up.

Given MCW’s history of engaging in discriminatory behavior, it’s a welcome sign that it has decided to remove its divisive, activist content – so long as it is a sincere shift in priorities. 

In 2022, Do No Harm filed a complaint with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) against MCW for its 2022 Visiting Underrepresented in Medicine (URiM) Student Elective Program.

Acceptance into the program required applicants to “be a member of a group that is recognized as racially/ethnically URiM by MCW: Mexican American, Puerto Rican, Black/African American, Native American, and Hmong/Hmong American.” This requirement is a violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race or ethnicity.

Following our complaint, MCW ended up removing specific race/ethnicity eligibility criteria from the program description.

In recent months, many medical schools have rebranded their DEI initiatives following President Trump’s executive orders; but ultimately, these efforts should be genuine attempts to end divisive and exclusionary practices, rather than attempts to merely remove incendiary language.

Schools must ditch this discriminatory, regressive ideology entirely.

Certifying Activism: The American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology’s DEI Obsession

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Like many medical organizations in recent years, the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology (ABPN), which certifies psychiatrists and neurologists underwent an ideological transformation that involved integrating DEI and “anti-racism” into its core mission and activities.

According to its DEI resource page, DEI is now a part of its “Strategic Action Plan.” 

The plan lists “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” as one of the ABPN’s “key values”; similarly, listed among its “priority areas” is the goal to “Promote Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Across Our Activities.”

Pursuant to its Strategic Action plan, the ABPN has “Established a board-level DEI Committee”; “Developed DEI policy and statement”; “Incorporated DEI into ABPN Strategic Plan as core values and as a priority area”; and “Committed to fostering an inclusive workplace, including best practices in human resources.”

Additionally, the ABPN has altered its certification process to incorporate DEI objectives. 

It now provides “CME or Self-Assessment CME activities with DEI-related content” for “use toward Continuing Certification requirements.” On another resource page, the ABPN promotes several continuing medical education (CME) courses designed to advance DEI and “anti-racism.”

In short, this means that DEI indoctrination counts toward certifying a psychiatrist’s or neurologist’s competency to practice.

This is obviously nonsensical; but the courses promoted by the ABPN feature offerings from major mental health medical associations.

These courses are administered by medical associations including the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP), the American Academy of Neurology (AAN), and the American Psychiatric Association (APA).

The courses feature titles including “Clinical Essentials on Advancing Anti-Racism” and “How Racial Socialization Perpetuates Racial Inequities in Psychiatry”; there’s also the AAN’s Anti-Racism Education Program.

This course objectives include having participants “Recognize anti-racism as a professional competency, engage in conversations about race and racism, and practice skills to improve patient care” and “Understand how to apply a racial equity framework to their own clinical practice and in health care systems.”

Additionally, several APA offerings promoted by the ABPN include implicit calls for activism in the field beyond, including: “Approaching Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Social Justice through Creating Sustainable Organizational Change”; “Advocacy for Anti-Racist Policies That Expand Equitable Access to Mental Health Care: The Role of the Psychiatrist”; and “Stylistic Writing Strategies that Further Racial Equity.”

The consequence of this DEI fixation is that psychiatrists and neurologists will be inundated with racial and political agitprop, to the detriment of their practice.

This is not helping patients; instead, it is embedding a radical and often discriminatory ideology into the profession. 

Colorado Bill Threatens Parents Into ‘Affirming’ Child’s ‘Gender’ Identity

A Colorado bill introduced last week would intimidate parents into “affirming” their child’s gender identity, setting the stage for future harmful medical interventions.

The bill states that courts “shall consider deadnaming, misgendering, or threatening to publish material related to an individual’s gender-affirming health-care services as types of coercive control” when making child custody decisions.

“Coercive control” is defined as “a pattern of threatening, humiliating, or intimidating actions, including assaults or other abuse, that is used to harm, punish, or frighten an individual.”

In other words, the law effectively bullies parents into “affirming” their child’s self-identified gender. It does this by equating the failure of a parent to affirm their child’s gender identity with abuse, empowering courts to consider such factors in custody decisions.

Parents who fail to “affirm” are effectively at risk of losing their children.

The natural conclusion of this “affirmation” approach is to place children onto the transgender medicalization pathway, in which they undergo invasive medical interventions to alter their body in accordance with their self-identified “gender.”

Protecting children from their parents thoughtlessly and automatically affirming their gender dysphoria is an important first step to prevent further harmful medicalization.

The Colorado bill, however, would instead intimidate parents into effectively encouraging this medicalization process through affirming the child’s self-identified gender.

“Social transition increases the risk of medical harm,” said Do No Harm Senior Fellow Dr. Travis Morrell, a practicing physician in Colorado.

“Social transition, which is what this bill basically requires of parents – using certain names and pronouns – increases medicalization and surgery, which can cause a lifetime of regret,” Morrell added.

In addition to this legislation, another bill introduced last week would prohibit health insurance benefit plans from denying coverage for sex change interventions deemed to be “medically necessary” by a healthcare provider. The bill would also exempt prescriptions for testosterone from the state’s prescription drug use tracking program.

Child sex change interventions provide no proven long-term benefits; instead, they impose lifelong consequences on children who lack the capacity to meaningfully understand or consent – including permanent sterilization, lifetime dependence on pharmaceuticals, bone density loss, and more.

The lack of evidence supporting child sex changes has been demonstrated by the most authoritative reviews of the evidence on this issue.

The inevitable consequence of this legislation is the further endangerment of children.