Brad McDowell

Brad McDowell has been a registered nurse for 16 years.

In 2021, he began working in the emergency room at Meritus Medical Center in Maryland, and it didn’t take long until he was promoted to oversee other nurses on the team.

Maryland requires all healthcare professionals to take “implicit bias” trainings, largely due to the myth that racism is to blame for higher mortality rates among black mothers. Brad was instructed to attend a training, and left appalled at the lack of evidence surrounding the accusations being made.

Brad stopped going to the trainings – and no one from the hospital seemed to care until last month, when he challenged the idea of “implicit bias” trainings on his private Facebook page. His employer was not mentioned anywhere in the post or in his profile.

Brad was placed on administrative leave the next day, and fired days later.

“It’s fine to oppose diversity, equity and inclusion as long as you keep it to yourself,” Brad writes in the Wall Street Journal. “The moment you speak out, you have a target on your back.”

You deserve to hear Brad McDowell’s story in his own words. Read his commentary here.