The Danger of Elevating Diversity over Quality in Medicine

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We now have even more evidence that a lowering of standards in service of diversity is doing real harm to the medical profession.

Diversity is good, but it should never come at the expense of quality. That’s especially true in fields like my own medical profession. For years, the medical establishment has relentlessly pushed to recruit more minorities into medical school. While a great many are highly qualified, a great many aren’t, yet the powers that be are lowering standards to let them in. A growing body of evidence demonstrates the danger of diversity gone wild. Yet when anyone points it out, they are brutally maligned as racist.

I know from experience. One year ago, I commented on a study that found that minority resident trainees in three major teaching hospitals performed less well than their white and Asian counterparts. The authors of that study posited that racism and bias were the only explanation. In response, I pointed out the possibility that the assessments may have been correct and that many of the minority residents did indeed perform less well. The blowback was as swift as it was severe.

Read more on National Review.

Inside the Transgender Empire

The transgender movement is pressing its agenda everywhere. Most publicly, activist teachers are using classrooms to propagandize on its behalf and activist health professionals are promoting the mutilation of children under the euphemistic banner of “gender-affirming care.” The sudden and pervasive rise of this movement provokes two questions: where did it come from, and how has it proved so successful? The story goes deeper than most Americans know.

Read more on Imprimis.

ROBINSON: Overturning DEI in North Carolina’s higher education

North Carolina deserves the best system of higher education in the country.  

That’s why I applaud lawmakers for their recent override of Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto in enacting a groundbreaking law that reforms our taxpayer-funded public institutions, including our colleges and universities. This legislation is an important step toward rooting out radical politics from our public institutions. In our government, and in higher education, this will reorient our systems to focus on educating and preparing our students for the future.  

 One of this bill’s most important reforms is tackling the radical ideology of so-called “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion”. 

Read more on North State Journal.

Yale study: Asians feel ‘invisible’ in med school

A group of Yale doctors and other healthcare researchers recently published a small study that stated there is “anti-Asian racism” in medical school programs and concluded that Asian students are “invisible.”

However, the researchers who conducted the study rejected the idea that a small sample size and biased sampling methods made the study inapplicable.

The study, funded by grants from the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine, interviewed 25 Asian medical students who were recruited through the Asian Pacific American Medical Students Association.

Read more on The College Fix.

Defending Litigation Attacks on DEI Programs: A Status Update

At a Glance

  • Before the Supreme Court’s ruling in Students for Fair Admissions vs. Harvard, four Fortune 150 companies were sued over their diversity, equity and inclusion, and environmental, social and governance practices. This alert provides an update on those cases.

As we noted in our prior alert, the American Alliance for Equal Rights (Alliance), following the U.S. Supreme Court’s June opinion in Students for Fair Admissions vs. Harvard (SFFA), has sued two large law firms alleging that the fellowship programs they offered to law students violated Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 (Section 1981). But as an earlier alert recognized, law firms are not the only targets of these emerging types of claims, as many prominent businesses — including Fortune 150 stalwarts Starbucks, Amazon, Pfizer and Comcast — faced legal scrutiny regarding their diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices even before the SFFA decision. Below, we describe how four notable pre-SFFA cases have proceeded.

  • Pfizer. As we’ve previously discussed, in September 2022, a group of anonymous physicians, healthcare professionals, medical students, patients and policymakers — organized as “Do No Harm” in early 2022 — filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against Pfizer, seeking to block further implementation of the company’s Breakthrough Fellowship Program (BFP).1 This program, which was designed to address gaps in recruiting, retaining, and promoting students and young professionals of “Black/African American, Latino/Hispanic and Native American” descent, was challenged as “categorically” discriminating against white and Asian American applicants through claims under Section 1981, Title VI, and other federal, state and city laws. In denying Do No Harm’s emergency motion for a preliminary injunction, Judge Jennifer L. Rochon most notably held that Do No Harm lacked “associational standing” to bring its federal claims. By failing to name any of its members, the organization was unable to establish that at least one identified member had suffered or would suffer harm. Further, Do No Harm was also unable to demonstrate that any of its members were “ready and able” to apply to the BFP or able to meet the minimum program qualifications. Do No Harm has appealed the District Court’s decision to the Second Circuit.2 While the appeal is pending, Pfizer’s description of the BFP now reads that it “works to advance students with demonstrated commitment and ability to advance diversity, equity and inclusion for Black/African American, Latino/Hispanic and Native Americans at Pfizer.”3

Read more on JD Supra.

Pfizer Diversity Program Suit in Doubt as Appeal May Be Moot

Recent changes to Pfizer Inc.‘s fellowship program aimed at building a diverse workforce suggest that a legal challenge to that program might no longer be valid, a panel of federal appeals court judges in Manhattan indicated.

During oral arguments Tuesday, Judge Beth Robinson of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit suggested to Pfizer that the appeal appears moot because the company amended the program’s requirements for the 2023 fellowship class by opening it up to applicants of all racial backgrounds.

“I was looking for the mootness argument based on the changes. I thought that would be the logical play for Pfizer but that’s not what I’m seeing,” Robinson told Samantha Lee Chaifetz of DLA Piper LLC, who represented Pfizer.

“I think that is certainly our position,” Chaifetz replied.

Do No Harm, an advocacy group of health-care professionals, students, and policy makers, appealed a federal district court’s December 2022 ruling that the organization lacked standing to block the pharmaceutical giant from continuing its fellowship program.

Read more on Bloomberg.

UT System Medical School Offering Race-Based ‘Enrichment Program’ for Reapplicants

As colleges adjust to the recent ban on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and offices that the Texas Legislature passed in its 88th Legislative Session, one University of Texas System medical school is continuing to offer race-based programs as part of its recruitment efforts.

The University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) in Galveston has released a new “reapplicant enrichment program” promoted as being for “underrepresented minority and disadvantaged students into medical careers.”

To qualify for the program, an applicant must meet one of the following criteria: “African American male, underrepresented in Medicine (African American, American Indian, Hispanic, Hawaiian/Pacific Islander), First-Generation College Student, or educationally and/or economically disadvantaged background.”

Read more on The Texan.

Wisconsin ban on gender care would put kids at risk, advocates say

Health care providers and LGBTQ advocates are emphasizing the need for medical services for transgender youths in Wisconsin at the same time Republican lawmakers are pushing to ban gender-affirming care.

Three GOP legislators circulated a bill Wednesday to discipline physicians who provide gender-affirming care for minors. Another group of lawmakers want a bill to create a civil cause of action for anyone who believes they were harmed by the care.

Gender-affirming care encompasses a range of health care designed to address gender dysphoria, when a person’s identity conflicts with their gender assigned at birth. The exact treatments can vary depending on age. Younger teens can receive puberty blockers that halt or delay the onset of puberty, with the goal of allowing them more time to determine their gender identity before developing certain sex characteristics, such as those associated with genitalia, hair or breasts.

Read more on the Cap Times.

Culture War | Fighting Against Opinion Based Medicine

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https://rumble.com/v3jo3yi-culture-war-take-two-aspirin-and-call-me-by-my-pronouns.html

Moms on a Mission welcomes Dr. Stanley Goldfarb who started an organization called, “Do No Harm” in April of 2022 after he wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal called, “Take Two Aspirin and Call Me By My Pronouns”. He shares that medical education was starting to take a turn at that point and he was seeing more and more focus around the country on social issues rather than on producing the best physicians who have the most knowledge about caring for sick people which is the role of physicians. He continues to say that he was noticing that the effort was made to create more of a diverse medical school class and there was sacrifice to the merit of the students in favor of making sure their skin color was of a great variety when they took a class picture.

After the article, he wrote a book with the same title expounding on these very ideas. He explains that he later felt that he needed to do more so he started an organization called, “Do No Harm”, which has been successful in producing lawsuits against people risking the quality of American medicine and producing discriminatory activities. “Do No Harm” has helped get laws passed in 20 states regarding “gender affirming care” along with “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” activities in several states. They have 5000 members now! Dr. Goldfarb has been canceled because of his activities and when you go to the University of Pennsylvania website, his name is gone even though his name is on the books as an Emeritus Professor of Medicine and was the co-director of the Kidney Division. His name has been removed from the history of that website.

Dr. Goldfarb shares that the grave concern and difficulty with fighting this is that in the face of this opinion based medicine, there has been a solid front of academic medical societies in the United States.


Join “Do No Harm” and support them with prayer, reading their newsletters, and financially if you feel so led. None of the members are making any money.

Watchdog Reveals ‘Disturbing’ Consent Form Details Offered to Children by Utah Gender Clinic

Gender-transition treatments offered by gender clinics to minors can result in serious side effects like erectile dysfunction, loss of fertility, decreased sperm production, and even death, admitted “consent forms” obtained by advocacy America First Legal (AFL).

In June, AFL filed public records requests with gender clinics in five states to obtain records related to “gender-affirming care.” The advocacy recently received consent forms from the University of Utah Health: Gender Management and Support Clinic.

Read more in The Epoch Times.

Minnesota university teaches structural racism is public health crisis, physicians ‘must’ be antiracist

The University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health is using curriculum that teaches that structural racism is a public health crisis and that physicians have an obligation to be antiracist.

The University of Minnesota School of Public Health’s Center For Antiracism Research For Health Equity [CAHRE], the Minnesota Department of Health, and an organization called Diversity Science collaborated on developing a curriculum to help medical professionals provide perinatal care for Black and Indigenous “birthing people.”

Diversity Science is a public company that provides training programs that are intended to help organizations foster diversity, equity, and inclusion practices. According to Diversity Science’s website, they are an “evidence-based organization” that provides clients with real-world knowledge and effective programs.

Read more on Fox News.

A New Front in the War on Merit

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Millions of academic studies are published each year. Some fundamentally alter the course of history, while others never even get cited. Those curious about the effect of specific researchers, papers, or journals often turn to a metric called “impact factor.” This metric counts the number of citations accrued by a researcher or research paper, or the average number of citations for studies in a specific journal. It’s a sensible and simple method for measuring influence.

According to a new “study,” it’s also an exercise in racism and sexism.

The paper, “A new tool for evaluating health equity in academic journals; the Diversity Factor,” published in PLOS Global Public Health, correctly points out that impact factor is an imperfect measure of cultural and scientific reach. Among the problems: researchers game the stats through self-citation, and journal-impact factors are skewed by studies that pick up extremely high numbers of citations. Still, impact factor represents a reasonably good proxy of the thing it purports to measure. While sensible researchers know not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good, activists instead see imperfection as opportunity. Enter: the “diversity factor.” 

Read more on the City Journal.

‘Reverse discrimination’ activist files Title IX complaint against Baldwin Scholars program

A prominent “reverse discrimination” activist filed a federal complaint Wednesday evening against Duke’s Alice M. Baldwin Scholars program, alleging that the program for female-identifying students violates Title IX provisions.

Mark Perry, an emeritus professor of economics and finance in the School of Management at the University of Michigan–Flint, has been filing federal civil rights complaints against U.S. colleges and universities alleging “reverse discrimination” under Title IX and Title VI for seven years. 

Read more on the Duke Chronicle.

Bye, DEI. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out

Diversity, equity, and inclusion has insinuated itself into many aspects of people’s lives, from corporate hiring to college admissions. Over much of the past few years, diversity officers have been some of the hottest hires in business , university, and government bureaucracies. But recently, they’ve begun to feel left out in the cold.

According to the Wall Street Journal , “Companies including Netflix, Disney and Warner Bros. Discovery have said recently that high-profile diversity, equity and inclusion executives will be leaving their jobs. Thousands of diversity-focused workers have been laid off since last year, and some companies are scaling back racial justice commitments.”

Read more on the Washington Examiner.

EXCLUSIVE: University Spent Over $200,000 On ‘Diversity’ Course Teaching Physicians That Healthcare Is Racist

The University of Minnesota (UMN) paid over $200,000 to develop a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) training program that teaches medical professionals that healthcare is fundamentally racist, according to documents received by the medical watchdog Do No Harm and shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The training, developed by Diversity Science, is intended to educate healthcare professionals on obstetric care for black and indigenous women, which the training dubs “birthing people,” and highlights perceived “structural racism” in healthcare practices. Moreover, UMN’s DEI office blames “white supremacy” for certain disparities in perinatal care, and trains providers to view the development of medicine and the healthcare system as tainted with racism, documents obtained by Do Not Harm reveal.

Read more at the Daily Caller.

California Passes Bills Targeting Parental Rights

Gender affirmation will become a factor in California child custody cases if Gov. Gavin Newsom signs new legislation into law.

If the bill, AB-957, is signed into law, a parent who disagrees with their child seeking social transitioning or gender transition procedures could lose custody of the child and face child abuse charges.

Read more at Newsmax.

Harvard research blames ‘white supremacy,’ ‘capitalism’ for pregnant black moms’ health problems

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Study: Policy changes needed to ‘dismantle structural racism’

Capitalism, “white supremacy,” and “structural racism” are to blame for the high rate of black maternal health problems in the U.S., according to a new study out of Harvard University.

The study, “A conceptual understanding of the impact of interconnected forms of racism on maternal hypertension through Black Women’s lived experiences,” asserts that black women have disproportionately high maternal mortality and hypertension rates because of systemic racism.

Read more at The College Fix.

Gavin Newsom faces slate of transgender bills targeting parental rights

California’s legislature has taken major steps to institutionalize hiding child transgender identity from parents in a slate of bills headed to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D-CA) desk.

One or both houses of the Golden State legislature have overwhelmingly passed five separate bills aimed at both hiding childhood proclamations of transgender identity from parents and punishing them for not “affirming” the child through social and medical interventions.

Read more at the Washington Examiner.