EXCLUSIVE — More than 70 medical schools are under scrutiny from a watchdog group for maintaining diversity, equity, and inclusion offices and race-based selection policies, even after federal demands to eliminate discriminatory practices.
A list from medical and civil rights watchdog Do No Harm has identified up to 70 medical schools still engaging in DEI-driven selection practices despite the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision striking down race considerations and affirmative action for college admissions.
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“Schools and health systems cannot be allowed to fly under the radar and continue these obviously discriminatory practices, especially when they have the vital job of producing our future doctors,” Kurt Miceli, medical director at DNH, told the Washington Examiner.
DNH refers to this database as a “watchlist” and has pointed to the now-expired Feb. 28 deadline set by the Education Department for federally-funded colleges and universities to eliminate all racially discriminatory programs, practices, and policies. In a Feb. 14 letter, the agency warned that many of these programs, which went unchecked under the Biden administration, are now under scrutiny by the Trump administration.
“These schools should be on notice: racial discrimination will not be tolerated,” DNH stated, adding that medical schools often use DEI language “as cover for racially discriminatory practices.”
How are these med schools still engaging in allegedly unlawful DEI?
State University of New York Downstate and SUNY Upstate are two schools that still treat DEI like a vital policy.
“Diversity and inclusion are catalysts for establishing excellence in medical education,” according to SUNY Downstate’s webpage, while a similar page for SUNY Upstate states it is “committed to the principles of … affirmative action.”
The Georgetown University School of Medicine also still partners with the Pip DEI Collective, which provides “anti-oppressive DEI” training to reshape medical school admissions and hiring processes.
At Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, the school’s “Health Equity” office is “committed to supporting … recruitment and retention of a diverse student body, and sponsoring activities to increase diversity.” The school also lists a “Transgender Medicine Elective” available to residents in the “Urban Health track,” a division of JHUSM committed to DEI and “antiracism” as central values to its program, according to its webpage.
While dozens of medical schools are still committing to DEI practices, certain schools, such as Columbia University’s medical center, appear to be throwing in the towel on the controversial ideology.
Columbia University’s Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons was previously under the watchdog’s crosshairs for allegedly maintaining DEI initiatives. As of mid-February, the top of the school’s “Who We Serve” section now says the school “complies with all applicable civil rights laws and does not engage in illegal preferences or discrimination,” an apparent effort to avoid a potential legal problem.
Two schools now face civil rights complaints
On Wednesday, DNH submitted federal complaints to the Department of Health and Human Services’s Office for Civil Rights against Duke University Health System in North Carolina and Geisinger College of Health Sciences in Pennsylvania, according to complaints first obtained by the Washington Examiner.
The complaints accuse both institutions of engaging in race-based scholarships and faculty recruitment practices that violate federal civil rights laws while receiving millions in taxpayer dollars. Duke, for instance, received $455 million in federal National Institute of Health funding in 2024 alone.
Duke’s Minority Recruitment and Retention Committee hosts networking events and second-look visits exclusively for applicants from certain racial groups, meaning “[n]on-minority medical students are ineligible for these opportunities solely because of their race,” the complaint states.
The medical center’s Visiting Clinical Scholars Program also provides $10,000 in financial aid, but only to “students who identify as underrepresented minorities,” regardless of their academic merits, DNH said.
The complaint also mentions Kendall Conger, an ex-emergency room physician for Duke Raleigh Hospital, a campus of Duke University Hospital, who made waves in recent years for questioning the school’s “pledge” against racism in medicine.
After Conger publicly questioned whether racism in medicine was backed by legitimate scientific evidence, the health system decided against renewing his contract last year without citing “any concrete incident of wrongdoing,” according to the complaint.
“For Duke, diversity was a goal rather than a byproduct of seeking to hire only the best and the brightest regardless of superficial appearances (immutable characteristics),” Conger told the Washington Examiner in an email.
“When factors other than merit come into play, competence suffers, patients suffer,” he said.
Meanwhile, a $3.4 million federally funded Center for Learning Excellence was established at Geisinger to expand the pipeline for underrepresented racial groups in medicine, though not for white or Asian students.
Geisinger also implemented a controversial DEI training program that included a module describing the “benefits of Whiteness” being part of a “system organized to materially benefit ‘White’ people” while “decimating people of color.”
The complaint describes this as stereotyping and racially hostile activity, arguing, “This would never be tolerated if the races were reversed.”
Since 2017, Geisinger has received at least $8.27 million in federal assistance, including grants for race-based residency training and DEI-focused healthcare initiatives.
“Relying on intrinsic characteristics and not merit undermines the very principle of equal opportunity and ultimately puts patients at risk. It is both illegal and immoral. Duke and Geisinger must be held accountable,” DNH’s medical director told the Washington Examiner.
As DNH investigates medical schools, a broader federal crackdown on race-based policies is taking place in the Trump administration.
Last week, the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights announced it launched investigations into more than 50 colleges and universities over racial preferences in academics and scholarships, warning schools of funding cuts if such programs persist.
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The Washington Examiner contacted the Department of Education, the Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights, Johns Hopkins, Georgetown, SUNY, Duke, and Geisinger for comment.
Neither representatives for Duke nor Geisinger responded regarding the civil rights complaints.