EXCLUSIVE — Senate Republicans are probing the National Institutes of Health to provide more information on its diversity, equity, and inclusion hiring practices, which they say may have downstream effects on the looming shortage of physicians and healthcare workers.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), the leading Republican on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, sent a letter to new NIH Director Monica Bertagnolli on Tuesday inquiring about her agency’s Faculty Institutional Recruitment for Sustainable Transformation, or FIRST, program, which uses diversity statement rubrics for hiring new researchers.
“I support having more diverse biomedical research,” Cassidy wrote. “However, allowing schools to use taxpayer dollars to support the adoption of ‘woke’ hiring criteria pushed by progressive political activists goes far beyond bipartisan congressional intent.”
Reporting from the Wall Street Journal cited in Cassidy’s letter said that the FIRST program, established in 2020, requires grant recipients to use diversity statements for new hires and uses rubrics that “penalize job candidates for espousing colorblind equality.” The program also reportedly gives lower scores to researchers who intend to “treat everyone the same.”
“The nation’s population continues to become increasingly diverse, and there is an urgent need to ensure that the scientific talent which is key to our nation’s success is nurtured, recognized, and supported across all groups,” the program’s main webpage says.
The FIRST program’s webpage also says the program is designed “to lead to the recruitment of talented researchers from all groups” at various institutions across the country.
The program is largely intended for limited-resource institutions and research universities that primarily serve ethnic minorities, according to the program’s FAQ page.
Drexel University, University of California San Diego, and Vanderbilt University have received a combined total of $47.4 million for their researchers hired under the FIRST program.
Because the NIH grant funding under the FIRST program requires research universities to use the DEI hiring criteria for employees funded under the program, Cassidy says that the program could eventually negatively affect the training of clinical physicians, worsening the doctor shortage.
“The hiring criteria reportedly associated with this program have no place in our nation’s medical schools,” Cassidy wrote to Bertagnolli.
In March, the Association of American Medical Colleges reported that the U.S. is expected to see a shortage of between 20,000 and 40,000 primary care physicians by 2036. The association also expects to see a shortage of upward of 20,000 surgical specialists.
Republicans in both the Senate and the House have expressed hope that Bertagnolli will be more transparent than prior leadership regarding the internal functions of NIH, especially grant funding programs.
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In her several public hearings before the Senate, Bertagnolli has expressed a willingness to cooperate with congressional requests from both Democrats and Republicans and improve her agency’s response to legislative oversight.
The Washington Examiner contacted the NIH director’s office for comment.