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UW-Madison’s Medical School Adopts Divisive DEI Policies, According to Internal Survey

The School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has adopted a set of concerning policies, according to an internal Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging (EDIB) survey conducted in 2023. SMPH’s responses indicated that the school has successfully implemented nearly all of the model policies outlined in the survey. Many of these policies are controversial because of their potential to discriminate against faculty and students based on race or other identity characteristics.

The EDIB survey at UW-Madison is similar to other DEI-inventories, such as the DICE survey conducted by the Association of American Medical Colleges. These surveys offer alarming insight into the practices and goals of leading medical institutions that appear to prioritize diversity goals over merit and rigor. Moreover, many diversity, equity, and inclusion policies are shown to increase divisiveness in organizations after they are adopted and implemented.

Figure 1. From UW-Madison SMPH EDIB survey.

According to the EDIB survey results, here are some of the practices embraced by SMPH:

SMPH has incorporated DEI standards into merit and performance reviews for staff and faculty.

This policy dilutes and undermines the effectiveness of meritocratic promotions for faculty and staff by including metrics that are based in ideology rather than performance. As a result, faculty and staff are required to promote DEI ideology as a condition for professional advancement, eroding academic freedom and free speech.

SMPH has created senior leadership and support staff roles focused on DEI and diversity-related outreach in the community.

These policies create a permanent woke bureaucracy pushing ideology on faculty, students, and other top administrators. In addition to consuming substantial resources that could otherwise be used for academics, these programs pursue politically motivated activities within the university and the broader community.

SMPH issues statements of support in response to diversity-related situations in the community.

This policy alienates students, faculty, and community members who hold different views from the school on political issues that are otherwise irrelevant to the operations of the medical school. Further, SMPH imperils the reputation of their medical school by publicly reflecting the radical views of a small group of DEI bureaucrats within the institution.

SMPH has developed initiatives and programs dedicated to diversifying its graduate student-body, including fellowships and scholarships for underrepresented demographics.

Under this policy, Wisconsin’s taxpayers are funding programs that disadvantage people of certain racial and ethnic backgrounds. While these programs are separate from race-based admissions policies, they are comparably effective at limiting opportunities for demographics of students who are not chosen as priorities by woke bureaucrats.

Figure 2. From UW-Madison SMPH EDIB survey.

SMPH’s DEI policies warrant concern from the medical community, policymakers, and the public. These practices are increasingly at odds with state legislators, who held a hearing earlier this year to address a bill that would limit certain types of DEI policies in Wisconsin’s institutions of higher learning. In her testimony, a policy expert from the Cicero Institute promoted a national study from the Bipartisan Policy Institute that found that two-thirds of students in the U.S. believe that diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives undermine free speech.

SMPH has moved quickly to adopt and scale its DEI programming, as indicated by its high score on the EDIB survey. While these results might seem daunting for those seeking to roll back DEI, the EDIB survey actually creates a roadmap for reform. One of the most challenging aspects of creating legislation to counteract DEI is the sheer variety of policies that need to be targeted. Surveys like this one identify the specific areas into which DEI has permeated for state leaders. Undoubtedly, diversity surveys like EDIB and DICE promote DEI and pressure institutions to expand their initiatives to maintain alignment with peer institutions. But they also present opportunities for proper transparency and oversight that could prove valuable to policymakers looking to reintegrate meritocracy and rigorous academics into medical schools and other institutions of higher learning.

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After Affirmative Action, DEI Opens a New Frontier in University Admissions

Like many universities across the United States, the University of Wisconsin-Madison is revising its admissions policies to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (2023). While the university’s leadership has made clear its intention to comply with the basic contours of the law, UW-Madison intends to follow peer institutions in using its holistic admissions process to continue towards its diversity and equity goals.

Following the Supreme Court’s ruling, the new strategy of admissions reviewers is to create essay questions for applicants that evoke characteristics, experiences, and beliefs aligned with diversity, equity, and inclusion goals for the institution. This strategy is not illegal as long as it is not used as a simple proxy for race in the admissions process. Moving away from data-driven race-based admissions practices is progress, but using essay questions to accomplish related goals raises other problems. UW-Madison’s approach is an instructive case study for these issues and the tradeoffs of transitioning from affirmative action to different strategies to increase diversity.

UW-Madison’s leadership announced three specific changes to its admissions practices in an internal email to graduate school faculty, department chairs, and admissions coordinators in August 2023. First, the university will still collect race and ethnicity information, but application reviewers will not be able to view or consider those data in the admissions process. Second, graduate programs will be permitted to add supplementary essay questions focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion to their applications. Third, departments are encouraged to use a holistic review of applications for admission that includes how applicants can contribute to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

To support departments in this transition, the university’s Office of Legal Affairs developed a list of approved DEI essay questions that were vetted to comply with the Supreme Court’s ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (2023). These questions ask students to define their “role and/or contribution to create a more diverse, accepting, and stimulating” environment on campus and in the community, or to describe how they have “further[ed] [their] knowledge about building or enhancing a community of inclusion, belonging, and respect.” While these essay questions offer students the opportunity to provide racial and ethnic information about themselves that could be misused in the admissions process, it is of far greater concern how these questions can be used to gauge an applicant’s loyalty to the ideological principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Over the last decade, colleges and universities across the country have started to use similar essay questions to ensure allegiance to diversity, equity, and inclusion among its faculty. According to a legislator’s testimony for a Wisconsin State Assembly hearing on a 2024 assembly bill to ban such practices, nearly half of all large universities require potential faculty members to write statements in support of DEI. A representative from the Cicero Institute, a Texas-based think tank that has worked extensively to ban DEI academic loyalty oaths in state universities, offered additional testimony that noted that the University of Wisconsin removed such requirements for faculty, but other Wisconsin universities, like Madison Area Technical College, have not.

The UW—Madison may have removed requirements for potential faculty to write DEI statements during the hiring process, but under new admissions policies, the university’s graduate departments may now require prospective students to fulfill similar requirements. Other universities are likely to follow this path, replacing race-based admissions practices with ideology-based admissions practices. The result could be catastrophic for free speech and academic freedom among students.

States like Florida, Tennessee, and Texas have passed laws like the one being considered in Wisconsin which ban DEI in hiring and training at institutions of higher learning. These laws, however, do not specifically include admissions practices for undergraduate or graduate students. Universities are likely to exploit this gap in states that have already passed DEI reforms, and legislators may need to revisit their legislation. In states like Wisconsin that are still developing their reforms, legislators ought to consider whether or not universities should be permitted to require student DEI loyalty oaths. Universities appear to be accommodating the new requirements for admissions practices under the Supreme Court’s ruling, but a new frontier in perverse admissions practices has opened, and policymakers must remain vigilant.

DNH Podcast Graphic General-Bryce (1)

S2E12: Rep. Ron Bryce on Working to Ban Abusive Gender Transitions for Children

Kansas lawmaker and physician Rep. Ron Bryce shares a simple and powerful message: gender transitions for children are child abuse. He believes the procedures are unsafe, unproven, and unethical for kids—and he’s sponsoring a bill that would ban them for anyone under 18.

Listen in via Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, or Amazon Music.

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Duquesne University Opens New Osteopathic Medical School – But Puts DEI at the Forefront

On January 13, 2024, Duquesne University announced that it was opening a new osteopathic medical school on its Pittsburgh campus. Consistent with the trends seen in medical schools today, its website announced its support for “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” (DEI). But when a medical school like Duquesne endorses DEI, it is not endorsing the ordinary meanings of the individual words. Rather, it is laundering a radical ideology using the words “diversity, equity, and inclusion” as cover.

Beneath DEI’s noble-sounding words lurks a terrifying reality: oppressed identity is more important than competence. Now, with recent evidence that osteopathic medical schools are embracing DEI, Duquesne now only the most recent case, DEI has spread through virtually all of medical education. So why is Duquesne moving forward with this agenda?

In July 2022, the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC)–the nonprofit responsible for allopathic medical school accreditation–published the official guidance document called “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Competencies Across the Learning Continuum”. This document states that America is currently governed by a “system of oppression” called “white supremacy”, and declares, “The call for an anti-racist health care system — one which recognizes and addresses the intersectionality of systems of oppression — amplifies every day. [sic]”

This is alarming and disorienting. Yet less than one year after the AAMC guidance was published, the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine (AACOM) followed suit. In 2023, AACOM began requiring that every osteopathic medical school’s mission statement contain a political oath declaring fealty to DEI, and hire a full-time administrator trained in the political orthodoxies of DEI.

This brings us back to Duquesne University’s new medical school. On its website, it declared that it is “committed to increasing diversity within medicine”, which in practice means the selective lowering of achievement standards for certain favored groups. The website recites a standard catechism: “Studies show…”.

But ideology, not evidence, is leading the way here.

Among other things that the “studies show”, the Duquesne website states that: “health care professionals who share and understand patient ethnic and cultural backgrounds achieve better health outcomes for their patients.” This is called racial concordance theory. As we carefully documented, the preponderance of evidence rejects the idea that patients receive better care from doctors of the same race.

Duquesne also makes a sweeping appeal to “exhibit less implicit bias”, implying that physicians that are ethnic minorities have less implicit bias than whites. Yet the data on implicit bias theory are even more damning, with multiple studies clarifying that the implicit association test is afflicted with profound issues of reliability (whether scores are similar over repeated tests) and validity (whether scores predict real world behavior).

Figure 1. From the Duquesne University College of Osteopathic Medicine website.

But it gets worse. As part of its commitment to “diversity”, Duquesne’s website says it is committed to “attracting medical school candidates who have a basic understanding of the importance of DEI and a demonstrated desire to learn more.” This alludes to a dubious but widespread practice among medical schools of asking about an applicant’s agreement with DEI-related concepts in their secondary applications. As we reported last year, 36 of 50 top medical schools engaged in this practice.

There are a few ways forward to eliminate DEI initiatives in higher education, such as the ones that Duquesne is currently embracing. In 2023, anti-DEI legislation for America’s universities began sweeping across the country, especially in Texas, Tennessee, and Florida. A bill recently introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Congressman Dr. Greg Murphy called the EDUCATE Act would cut federal funding for medical schools that teach and promote divisive DEI concepts; compel students or faculty to take loyalty oaths such as in medical school applications; racially discriminate for scholarships, classes, or other opportunities; or maintain DEI offices, departments, or other equivalent bureaucracies or administrative positions. Duquesne University would be well-served by adopting this strategy, ensuring a more ideologically diverse–and scientifically inclined–student body while safeguarding the integrity of healthcare and the lives of patients.

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S2E11: Drs. Lauren Schwartz and Miriam Grossman on challenging the American Psychiatric Association’s new manifesto on gender ideology

Two respected psychiatrists who work with transgender-identified youths are calling out the American Psychiatric Association’s latest guidance on gender ideology for what it is: a political manifesto dressed up as science.

Listen in via Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, or Amazon Music.

Scranton,,Pennsylvania,Marked,By,A,Blue,Map,Tack.,The,City

Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine Embraces Accreditor’s DEI Program

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Diversity, equity, and inclusion programs are expanding at Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine in Scranton, Pennsylvania. The latest iteration is the incorporation of a new DEI training into Geisinger’s residencies and fellowships, as a concerned citizen recently conveyed to Do No Harm.

Equity Matters, an 18-month “framework for continuous learning and process improvement in the areas of DEI and anti-racism”, was created by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) in 2021. ACGME oversees the accreditation of more than 13,000 residency and fellowship programs and sets professional educational standards for the nearly 160,000 residents and fellows in the United States. This powerful organization is at the forefront of expanding DEI programming and policies in its constituent institutions.

The Equity Matters program offers participants three categories of DEI resources: a library of video trainings, an Equity Practice Toolkit, and a Holistic Recruitment Toolkit. Trainees are equipped with knowledge and resources to implement and scale their home institutions’ efforts to “achieve or enhance cultures of equity.”

Figure 1. Course offered from ACGME “Equity Matters” materials.

The video trainings cover dozens of topics ranging from the unique challenges of undocumented medical students to examining the “health benefits of living ‘white.’” While many of the videos are quite general in their scope, a few target-specific areas of strategic interest, like “Using a Structured Approach to Recruit Diverse Residents, Fellows, and Faculty.” This course asks participants to create a program-specific plan to implement “structural equity practices.”

Figure 2.  Course offered from ACGME “Equity Matters” materials.

Much of the jargon in the trainings is undefined in their syllabi, but based on the goals of the program it is clear that the intention is to equip participants with strategies to tilt the scales of their policies in favor of certain groups deemed diverse and counteract the influence of less favored groups in institutional culture. The other two parts of the program offer further evidence.

The Equity Practice Toolkit and Holistic Recruitment Toolkit apply the lessons from the trainings to specific areas of institutions: culture and recruitment.

The Equity Practice Toolkit focuses on assessing an institution’s culture and identifying areas where its commitments to diversity are lacking. Its content includes strategies to build allies within organizations and leverage those relationships to dismantle policies, systems, and cultural norms that are identified in the assessment as promoting or perpetuating racial bias. Courses include:

  • Environmental Equity Assessment
  • The Power of Culture
  • Allyship
  • Acting to Dismantle Racism
  • Bias Response

The Holistic Recruitment Toolkit applies the same framework more narrowly to admissions and recruitment, with an emphasis on scrutinizing processes. Participants map their institutions’ admissions processes and create strategies to shift practices and achieve specific diversity and equity outcomes. Examples of components in the toolkit are Holistic Principles in Resident Selection and Equity-Based Assessment in Recruitment.

Equity Matters contains a great deal of concerning content, but none of it is particularly exceptional. But what is of particular interest about Equity Matters is the way in which it is scaled through accreditation bodies like ACGME. DEI trainings that are created by accreditation bodies benefit from implicit institutional pressure to participate from accreditors to their constituent programs. Even programs that may not feel intrinsically motivated to adopt DEI trainings risk jeopardizing their relationships with accrediting bodies if they opt out; and inversely, programs that want to improve their relationships with their accreditors will enthusiastically adopt their DEI trainings. By its very creation by ACGME, Equity Matters impacts the incentives for residency and fellowship programs.

Accreditor-created DEI trainings and programs also benefit from added resilience against political attacks. Efforts by policymakers to limit or ban DEI programs in state institutions are complicated by the entangling of accreditors, accreditation standards, and certain DEI policies and programs.

Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine’s participation in an accreditor-created DEI program is far from unusual, but examining the way that institutions like Geisinger are responding to pressures from accreditors is crucial to a more comprehensive understanding of the spread of DEI in medical education.

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After More Than a Year, the UConn School of Medicine Shares its DICE Inventory: “Things Are in Pieces”

It took 14 months to obtain the information, but the University of Connecticut School of Medicine (UConn) finally provided Do No Harm with the Diversity, Inclusion, Culture, and Equity (DICE) Inventory document it submitted to the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) back in 2021.

In December 2022, we began reporting on the DICE Inventory results of other public medical schools across the country, which we received via freedom of information requests. The FOIA requests were made in response to AAMC’s November 2022 report showing that the vast majority of medical schools have embraced identity politics, despite their divisive and even discriminatory nature. We asked for a copy of UConn’s survey response so that Connecticut taxpayers and policymakers could learn the truth about this institution.

The UConn School of Medicine self-reported that it has an “office, staff, or resources” dedicated to DEI. This means there’s a permanent bureaucracy pushing politicized ideology on faculty and students. UConn claims to be “one of the nation’s top medical schools for diversity.” Yet, the person filling out the survey commented that “the landscape is fractured and dysfunctional” with “much infighting and no funding.” And, at the time of the submission, it was noted, “We do not have a formal diversity plan that covers the entire school. Things are in pieces.”

Eleven of the 14 categories that make up the overall DICE Inventory score were answered as “not applicable,” and no comments were offered in these sections. However, a perfect 100% was achieved in the “Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity Policies” portion of the survey.

Even with its minimal responses, the UConn School of Medicine managed to institute 76.7% of the divisive and discriminatory DEI-related policies listed by the AAMC, indicating “moderate Diversity, Inclusion, Culture, and Equity efforts.”

Figure 1. UConn School of Medicine DICE Inventory overall score.

Connecticut taxpayers help fund the UConn School of Medicine. They, and the policymakers who represent them, should ask why they’re giving so much money to an institution that dedicated itself to putting divisive and discriminatory ideology at the heart of medical education.

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S2E10: Rep. Ben Baker on Pushing Back Against DEI in Missouri’s Publicly Funded Colleges and Universities

State Rep. Ben Baker has served others in many roles, from ministry and mission work to education and public office. Now, he’s speaking up on behalf of concerned students, professors, and patients as a sponsor of the “Do No Harm Act,” a bill that would fight back against toxic DEI in Missouri’s publicly funded higher education institutions.

Listen in via Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, or Amazon Music.

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Do No Harm Supports the EDUCATE Act Introduced by Rep. Greg Murphy

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RICHMOND, Va. – Do No Harm announced support for the EDUCATE Act introduced today by Congressman Greg Murphy (NC-03). If passed, the bill would cut off federal funding to medical schools DEI programs.

The EDUCATE Act would defund programs that compel students or faculty to adopt specific beliefs or discriminate based on race or ethnicity. It would also defund medical schools that have diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) offices or any functional equivalent. The bill would also require accreditation agencies to check that their standards don’t push these practices, while still allowing instruction about health issues tied to race or collecting data for stats.

“Allowing rebranded race-based discrimination to infiltrate medical education is dangerous for future doctors and patients alike,” said Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, Chairman of Do No Harm. “I have witnessed firsthand the alarming rate at which DEI ideology has spread through medical schools across the country. If we fail to stop it, we risk a generation of physicians ill-equipped to meet the needs of their patients. Do No Harm applauds Congressman Murphy for taking this critical first step to end harmful DEI practices and make academic excellence the priority for medical schools once again.

American medical schools are the best in the world and no place for discrimination,” said Congressman Greg Murphy, M.D. “The EDUCATE Act compels medical schools and accrediting agencies to uphold colorblind admissions processes and prohibits the coercion of students who hold certain political opinions. Diversity strengthens medicine, but not if it’s achieved through exclusionary practices. Medicine is about serving others and doing the best job possible in every circumstance. We cannot afford to sacrifice the excellence and quality of medical education at the hands of prejudice and divisive ideology.”

The EDUCATE Act is designed to ensure medical schools educate the next generation of medical professionals without perpetuating discrimination in the name of diversity, while keeping free speech and anti-discrimination laws intact. Do No Harm urges Congress to advance this important piece of legislation to safeguard medicine from divisive political ideology.

Click here to read Congressman Murphy and Dr. Goldfarb’s op-ed on the EDUCATE Act in the Wall Street Journal.

About Do No Harm: 

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 6,400 members, including doctors, nurses, physicians, and concerned citizens across all 50 states and in 14 countries, DNH has achieved more than 7,870 media hits in top-tier publications and garnered widespread attention through numerous broadcast news appearances.

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A Mother Testifies to the Arizona State Legislature About the Consequences of Gender Transition

The following testimony was given before the Arizona legislature on March 11, 2024. Read this mother’s powerful story about her son’s experience and her concerns for his long-term health.

As the mother of a young adult son who is now trans identified and medically transitioning with anti-androgens and cross sex hormones, I worry about his long-term health and well-being.  While researching the issue, finding little in published medical evidence regarding the health implications, I began to encounter both trans-identified and detransitioned adults suffering health consequences. 

In February 2021, I met Forrest, a 25-year-old man, through social media who had begun the process of detransitioning.  This is the act of reverting to presenting as one’s birth sex after medical transition – many aspects of transition cannot be reversed.  In addition to the cross-sex hormones, Medicaid and insurance had paid for this young man to have breast implants and an orchiectomy, which is the removal of his testes.  He no longer produces his own sex hormones which are critical for health.  Soon after the surgery, he decided to detransition, but was denied coverage for the removal of the breast implants or the procedure of testicular implants for cosmetic reasons.  Both of these procedures are still fully covered for cross sex appearance, but not if your “gender journey” takes you back to attempting to live as your birth sex. This story and others led me to draft and propose legislation to help this young man and others who are experiencing insurance discrimination when detransitioning.

In a Reuters article on detransitioners from December of 2022, even WPATH is quoted as saying “many detransitioners expressed difficulties finding help during their detransition process and reported their detransition was an isolating experience during which they did not receive either sufficient or appropriate support.”

How many trans identified patients detransition?  We have no idea.  How many are enough to deserve care?  On the sub-Reddit, r/detrans, there are now 53,000 participants.  While we know not all are in the process of detransition, how many are enough to deserve care and coverage?  Lisa Littman’s study, Individuals Treated for Gender Dysphoria with Medical and/or Surgical Transition Who Subsequently Detransitioned: A Survey of 100 Detransitioners [Archives of Sexual Behavior, November 2021, showed that 75% of detransitioners did not return to their providers to report their detransition.

Per the Williams Institute 2022 study, there are over 41,000 trans identified adults in Arizona and over 7,000 between the ages of 13-17.  How many will seek to return to living as their birth sex?  We have no idea, however, with the recent rise in those who seek transition related drugs and surgeries, no matter what we believe to be the true rate of detransition, the actual number of those seeking care to detransition will also inevitably rise. Ensuring insurance coverage cannot wait until we know.  This vulnerable group deserves our help NOW and I will not stop fighting for Forrest and my son’s health and wellbeing.

Reduce,Greenhouse,Gas,Emission,For,Climate,Change,And,Sustainable,Development

The Most Pressing Issue in Family Medicine Is…Climate Change?

The last thing you would expect to see after opening up a medical journal is a deluge of articles about the “climate crisis”. Yet, that’s exactly what is contained in the latest volume of the journal of the American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM).

Roughly 35 percent of the 26 articles contained in the most recent email to ABFM members detailing their journal’s table of contents are principally about climate change or the environment. These include commentary pieces, original research, the editors’ note, and more. Pieces such as “Climate Change: How Will Family Physicians Rise to the Challenge?” and “When Climate Change Shows Up in the Exam Room” nearly outnumber articles about conventional medical conditions or research.

For certain subcategories of research products, the climate-theme is even more overwhelming. For example, five out of the six commentary pieces in the latest addition of the journal pertain to climate change; the one non-climate change commentary piece is entitled “Lack of Diversity in Female Family Physicians Performing Women’s Health Procedures.”

The overwhelming argument contained in these research products is that climate change is discussed too little in family medicine (which somewhat ironic considering the sheer number of pieces dedicated to the topic), yet is of the utmost importance.

For example, in “Climate Change: How Will Family Physicians Rise to the Challenge?”, Audrey Hertenstein Perez argues that much more needs to be done in immersing physicians with the climate change agenda. She states: “There is an emerging field of Climate Health with fellowship training programs and residency curriculums available for collaboration. We must make this education a standard part of medical school and residency training to ensure that future physicians are adept to address climate change both within an office encounter and the communities in which they practice.” She goes onto condemn much of the medical field in her claim that “Hospitals and clinics rely heavily on fossil fuel-based energy and each laboratory test, imaging study, and pharmaceutical intervention increases this intensive energy demand.” The solution, according to Perez, is for doctors to become climate activists: “We also have a powerful voice as advocates. We must use that voice to approach local or national legislators to support measures that will mitigate climate change while assisting communities to adapt to the changes already at hand.”

Mona Sarfaty echoes some of these sentiments in “How Physicians Should Respond to Climate Change” by calling for climate change to be incorporated into medical education, stating “Medical schools should waste no more time in ensuring that medical education is up to date about climate change.”

In “Climate Change Psychological Distress: An Underdiagnosed Cause of Mental Health Disturbances”, Jessica de Jarnette details the symptoms of “Climate change psychological distress (CCPD), also known as climate anxiety” which is “a chronic fear of environmental doom…ranging from mild stress to clinical disorders like depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide.” The evidence cited by de Jarnette for this so-called crisis in family medicine is simply a handful of cherrypicked public opinion polls of Americans indicating they are worried about climate change. Meanwhile, the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) ranks the most prevalent mental health conditions in the United States— “Climate Change Psychological Distress” is nowhere to be found on their list.

In “Considering the Environmental Impact of Practice-Based Research”, several authors decry the “carbon footprint” generated by “the need to commute by automobile to and from [medical] practices” for practice-based research. The authors suggest virtual practices, e.g. telemedicine, are a necessary solution. While there are many virtues of telemedicine, the authors conveniently make no mention of the countless patients who may be one of the 42 million Americans without access to broadband. Are these patients to forgo their medical care for the sake of reducing carbon emissions?

Figure 1. “Greenhous gas equivalences for carbon dioxide production prevented by virtual practice facilitation” (from Considering the Environmental Impact of Practice-Based Research, JABMF, January 2024).

Put simply, the general theme of these pieces is quite similar: climate change is bad. Medical schools must incorporate the climate agenda into their curriculum. Doctors must become climate advocates both inside and outside of the exam room. Carbon emissions must be reduced. And repeat.

This is hardly the first instance of activists attempting to use family medicine as a means to promote a social or political agenda. As Dr. Goldfarb pointed out roughly two years ago, “When someone walks out there with their white coat on and their stethoscope and starts talking to you about the dangers of climate change, that changes the discussion about climate change. And I think that’s really been the motivation to try to generate more social activity on the part of physicians.”

At this pace, it will be refreshing to stumble upon articles in medical journals that actually pertain to legitimate discussions of medical issues, ethics, and research. However, if current trends continue, these types of articles may become the exception rather than the rule.

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Ten Questions Donors Should Ask When Making Gifts to Universities with Medical Schools or Healthcare Education Programs

We worked with philanthropic experts to answer a simple question we were getting from many of our members: How do I make sure my donations are not being used to advance woke ideology?

Donors must be aware of what the universities they’re underwriting  are doing in order to hold them accountable.

This resource provides some of the most important questions donors should ask the leaders of these institutions.

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Minorities Only! NIH, NIDDK, and APA Are Discriminating Against Race Again in LEAP Program

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The Leadership and Education Advancement Program (LEAP) for Diverse Scholars has a March 17th deadline for their fellowship program funded by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). Benefits include $2,000, mentorship, and the LEAP Boot Camp. The only catch? You can’t be white.

The application on the American Psychological Association (APA) website expressly asks for racial identification. Applicants “Must be of an underrepresented racial/ethnic background (e.g., African American/Black, Latinx, American Indian/Alaska Native, or Asian-American).”

Figure 1. LEAP for Diverse Scholars program from the APA.

NIDDK is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and is part of the U.S. government under the Department of Health and Human Services. Once again, the federal government is using taxpayer money to allot benefits based on race.

From the program’s landing page: “The Leadership and Education Advancement Program (LEAP) for Diverse Scholars is an evidence-informed mentoring and leadership development program for early career behavioral scientists from underrepresented racial and ethnic populations. These early career scientists perform research related to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) mission. LEAP prepares fellows to submit a high-quality National Institutes of Health or foundation grant application, supports their research and career development, and connects fellows to a network of senior researchers in a variety of academic settings and leadership positions.”

The APA lists current LEAP fellows on its website. Several current fellows are researching issues like the “challenges of navigating diverse spaces, including those most likely to trigger social identity threat,” and “constellations of multiply-minoritized statuses.”

Current discrimination is never the answer to past discrimination; and taxpayer money should never be used to further this twisted cause. What really matters is the quality candidates and scientific research, regardless of skin color, allowing the best research to lead to medical progress and treatments.

Do you know of a government policy that brings discrimination into healthcare? 

Please let us know – securely and anonymously.

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The American Academy of Family Physicians Continues Its March Towards Woke-Ism

Does your family physician subscribe to politicized ideologies? According to the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), that may not be quite enough to meet the organization’s goals.

Do No Harm has previously covered the AAFP’s obsession with DEI concepts, which have manifested themselves in a blatantly discriminatory ideology. In 2022, Do No Harm flagged materials and presentations from the AAFP’s primary annual event, where the organization held at least 10 sessions on DEI-inspired concepts, pushed a discredited “implicit association test”, and emphasized physicians focusing on a patient’s race rather than their medical needs.

Less than a year later, Do No Harm reported that the AAFP’s Vice President of Medical Education decried the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action and called for new ways to discriminate and indoctrinate the next generation of physicians.

Today, it seems like AAFP is at it again. The AAFP’s National Conference of Constituency Leaders—its primary annual leadership event—will be held in April. The AAFP is looking for all participants, but is really interested if you represent “recognized special constituencies”.

Figure 1. From an email sent to AAFP members (December 2023).

One of these constituencies is a member of a minority group, defined as “an active AAFP member who is African American, Asian, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, American Indian, Alaska Native, ethnic Latino, or Other.” Members of these constituencies may be eligible for reimbursements—but only one member per constituency, on a first-come first-serve basis.

And for participants who make it to the conference beforehand, they can join in early on the indoctrination for the pre-conference programming entitled “Advancing Health Equity and Social Justice in Family Medicine: Bridge Care Gaps by Breaking Barriers”.

Aside from their annual conference, the AAFP is also promoting “diversity milestones for program assessment”, a type of scorecard to gauge compliance with DEI-related initiatives. The milestones emerged out of a “Diversity and Health Equity Task Force” spearheaded by the Association of Family Medicine Residency Directors (AFMRD).

Figure 2. From a joint presentation by the AAFP and the AFMRD (2022).

Each of the five “domains” identified by the task force for medical education programs—which are “institution, curriculum, evaluation, resident personnel, and faculty personnel”—have controversial and divisive criteria. These include such milestones as: “all evaluators participate in bias training annually”, “curricula in inclusion, antiracism, structural oppression is integrated longitudinally throughout the entire curriculum”, “partners with the community in anti-racist and equity work in the community/population served”, and many more.

Medical education programs are encouraged to self-reflect and score themselves, with the goal of being as committed to DEI concepts as possible. Perhaps ironically, scores of residency programs in the initial pilot assessment averaged at just between 2.0 and 2.65 out of 5, depending on the domain graded. Surely, from the AAFP’s vantage point, there is much more ground for them to cover. [However, even the AAFP fails to practice what they preach. For example, the organization’s Board of Directors has a notable minimum level of diversity.]

Put simply, the AAFP has fully embraced a DEI-rooted ideology that promotes selective discrimination, controversial bias trainings and curricula, and even unfair selective standards for their own conference participants. Family physicians across the country would do well to distance themselves from these concepts and the woke organization that is pushing them.

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Indiana’s Governor Holcomb Signs Bill Into Law  

 On March 13, Indiana Governor Eric Holcomb signed Senate Bill 202 (SB 202) into law, paving the way for the removal of divisive practices and ideologically-driven initiatives from the state’s colleges and universities, including those with medical schools and healthcare education programs.

Authored by Senators Spencer Deery, Jeff Raatz, and Tyler Johnson, SB 202:

  • Prohibits educational institutions from imposing mandatory diversity statements from applicants in the hiring process and faculty members in the promotion and tenure process
  • Bans required adherence to DEI tenets for staff and students
  • Promotes intellectual diversity in classrooms and among faculty
  • Expands resources that were previously focused on student groups based on race (e.g., first-generation college students who need assistance, regardless of race/ethnicity)

Examples of divisive concepts that this bill addresses have been seen at the Indiana University School of Medicine (IUSM) in recent months, such as its DEI Leadership Certification Program. And, a training module that instructed job search committee members to consider their “implicit bias” and “whiteness” while evaluating applicants was offered by the IU Office of Academic Affairs last fall.

“Indiana just sent a strong signal that our state is committed to academic freedom, free expression, and intellectual diversity for all students and faculty,” Sen. Deery said in a press release. “While some Indiana public universities are already working on creating truly diverse communities,” he continued, “this law makes it an expectation across the state, and it does so without mandating or prohibiting any content and with no interruption to the important ongoing efforts to recruit and retain minority students in higher education.”

Do No Harm applauds the efforts of these legislators to restore merit and eliminate DEI-inspired practices in Indiana’s public universities.

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From New York to Arkansas to California, Woke Medicine Retreats Before the Feds Can Crack Down

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As DEI gains traction at colleges and universities across the country, so has pushback against this woke intrusion into academia and medicine.

In 2023 alone, Do No Harm filed 150 federal civil rights complaints with Offices for Civil Rights (OCR) at the Department of Education and Department of Health and Human Services, resulting in 40 federal civil rights investigations and multiple favorable decisions.

Already just a handful of months into 2024, Do No Harm is seeing positive outcomes in several key cases before OCR. Below is a sampling of success in just three such cases in New York, Arkansas, and California:

In 2022, Do No Harm Senior Fellow Mark Perry filed a complaint against the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, making two critical allegations. The first pertained to the school’s use of state grant funding in its Science and Technology Entry Program (STEP) to represent “historically underrepresented groups”—a thinly-veiled form of discrimination. The complaint was dismissed by OCR–but only because NYU is facing a parallel class action lawsuit against it for the same allegations of discrimination.

The second allegation pertains to the school’s sponsoring of the “Visiting Elective for Underrepresented in Medicine Program,” which offers a stipend of up to $2,000 for individuals from the following backgrounds: “Black or African American, Latinx, Native American, Native Pacific Islander, or Native Alaskan.”

Figure 1. Eligibility criteria for the NYU Grossman “Visiting Elective for Students Underrepresented in Medicine” as it appeared in 2022.

Again, in this instance, the OCR complaint was dismissed—but that is apparently only because NYU changed the name and eligibility requirements of the scholarship, almost certainly as a direct response to the OCR investigation prompted by Do No Harm. Indeed, the language on the application page has been broadened to merely encourage minority participation, while clarifying that “All interested individuals are welcome to apply.”

Figure 2. Eligibility criteria for NYU Grossman’s “Office of Diversity Affairs Visiting Elective Fund” as they currently appear.

The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) mirrored this approach, adjusting their eligibility criteria for a scholarship following the filing of an OCR complaint. Originally, applicants for UAMS’s “Gloria Richard-Davis, M.D., Scholarship for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” had to be from a “racial” or “ethnic” population that is “underrepresented in the medical profession relative to their numbers in the general population.”

Figure 3. Eligibility criteria for the University of Arkansas Gloria Richard-Davis, MD DEI scholarship as they appeared in 2023.

But today, the eligibility requirements for the scholarship are quite different—all mentions of race and ethnicity are removed, and instead the eligibility criteria are open to students who “come from impoverished backgrounds, who are first generation college graduates, or those who come from or intend to return to medical underserved areas of the state.”

Figure 4. Eligibility criteria for the University of Arkansas Gloria Richard-Davis, MD DEI scholarship as they currently appear.

Put simply, following the OCR complaint, UAMS changed its scholarship from one based on discriminatory criteria to one based on a broader range of factors with no mention of race.

Finally, the UCLA Geffen School of Medicine launched an “Underrepresented in Medicine – Center of Excellence” (UIM-COE) program offering two separate racially-based research and travel stipends to students who “identify as Black/African-American, Latina/o/x, Native, American/Alaskan Native, and/or Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander.”

Figure 5. Eligibility criteria for UCLA Geffen School of Medicine’s “Medical Student Conference Travel Stipend” as they appeared on January 15, 2024.
Figure 6. Current appearance of the Medical Student Conference Travel Stipend page.

In addition, the school offered a fellowship opportunity called the “Integrated Community Engaged, mHealth, and Data Science to Enhance Clinical Trial Diversity and Cardiometabolic Health (iDIVERSE) Fellow” available only to those who are “from a racial or ethnic group that is under-represented in science (Black/African-American; Hispanic/Latino; Native American or Alaska Native; and/or Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander) or an LGBTQ+ person or a woman.”

The victories here are straightforward: UCLA removed the racial criteria for the research and travel stipends in the UIM-COE program, and discontinued the iDIVERSE fellowship altogether. A win-win for getting woke out of medicine.

In each of these three cases, Do No Harm was instrumental in raising the issues, filing the complaints before OCR, and ultimately achieving multiple victories. These universities pulled back their discriminatory eligibility criteria as soon as the rubber met the road, caving under the prospect of facing federal scrutiny.

These outcomes demonstrate the powerful impact that Do No Harm and other like-minded individuals and entities can have on pushing back against woke-ism. And they are neither the first nor the last victories that Do No Harm will secure in fighting against blatantly discriminatory policies at academic and medical institutions across the country.

DNH Podcast Graphic General Nazarian

S2E9: Dr. Sheila Nazarian on Escaping Iran and the Rise of Antisemitism in Medicine

Dr. Sheila Nazarian is a plastic surgeon at the top of her field, and the star of her own Netflix show called, “Skin Decision: Before and After.” In this podcast, Dr. Nazarian talks about fleeing Iran at a young age and warns others of the dangers of the DEI agenda and its connection to antisemitism.

Listen in via Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, or Amazon Music.

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Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh Subscribes to the “Gender-Affirming Care” Model

Even as European standards for so-called “gender-affirming care” are revised to follow science-based and common-sense guidelines, the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh (CHP) is forging ahead with controversial practices for its youngest and most vulnerable patients.

At CHP, a part of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) network, children as young as nine years old can seek questionable treatments through the hospital’s Gender and Sexual Development program. The center offers hormone blockers to prevent a child’s natural pubescent process in addition to cross-sex hormones to help a child “transition” to their chosen new gender. A child can also seek mental health counseling through the center that will affirm the child as the opposite gender.

CHP’s Gender and Sexual Development program discloses limited risks for children taking puberty blockers, such as a stalling of cognitive development and reduced bone density. However, many doctors and researchers warn of serious risk for children prescribed these medications, including mood disorders, blood clots, diabetes, cancer, and infertility.

The website for the Gender and Sexual Development program at CHP also offers resources geared towards children who want to learn more about “tucking,” “packing,” and “binding”. These controversial practices assist a trans-identifying child to appear as the opposite gender through the use of devices and techniques that alter the appearance of their chests and genital areas, despite the pain and possible injury associated with these practices. Children are encouraged to explore tucking, packing, and binding and suggestions are offered in these handouts on how to purchase products to help with this process.

Figure 1. “Transgender 101” Glossary of Terms on the UPMC CHP website.

Parental resources on their website warn that misgendering your child can be “dangerous.” Another graphic threatens parents with the possibility of their child experiencing low self-esteem, poor mental health, depression, homelessness, and suicidal ideation/ attempts if they do not support their children by allowing them to transition. According to the CHP, trans regret is a myth and all children should be supported by their parents and medical professional to socially and medically transition to their chosen gender.

Figure 2. From the UPMC CHP parental resources website.

Parents who are seeking resources to help their trans-identifying child must seek assistance through credible sources. Our Parent Resource helps parents learn the facts about gender dysphoria, and how to find evidence-based information to help their children. While instilling fear in parents is a common tactic of activists who support children’s hospitals that offer so-called “gender affirming care,” Do No Harm equips parents with the actual evidence as they navigate the pitfalls and myths associated with gender ideology.