University of Pittsburgh Under Investigation for Removing Critic of Affirmative Action
“the Department is concerned Pitt’s many representations to students, faculty, and consumers in the market for education credentials regarding its support for academic freedom are false”
The Department of Education seems to be taking a much more proactive role in higher education lately. This is not a bad thing.
Liberty Unyielding reports:
Dep’t of Ed investigates university for removing critic of affirmative action
The federal Education Department is investigating the University of Pittsburgh for free-speech violations and false statements, after the University took action against Professor Norman Wang for publishing an academic paper critical of race-based affirmative action.
The University removed Wang as Program Director at its medical center solely due to his paper. The Education Department is also examining whether the University engages in illegal racial preferences in admissions and hiring. The Education Department outlined its concerns in a letter to the University of Pittsburgh, which stated:
The U.S. Department of Education (“Department”) has become aware of facts suggesting the University of Pittsburgh (“Pitt”) improperly targeted Dr. Norman Wang, associate professor of medicine, with a campaign of denunciation and cancellation due to the publication of his peer–reviewed scientific article in the Journal of the American Heart Association advocating race–neutral admissions and hiring in cardiology.
Specifically, it appears Pitt’s senior officials removed Dr. Wang as Program Director of the Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology Fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (“UPMC”) on July 31, 2020, disparaged his scholarship, and subjected him to public vilification solely because his academic paper concluded, inter alia, “Ultimately, all who aspire to a profession in medicine and cardiology must be assessed as individuals on the basis of their personal merits, not their racial and ethnic identities.”
Consequently, the Department is concerned Pitt’s many representations to students, faculty, and consumers in the market for education credentials regarding its support for academic freedom are false. … The facts further suggest Dr. Wang may have been disparately treated because of his race (Asian). That is, Pitt would not have acted against him for publishing an academic paper containing the same or similar arguments and empirical data if he were of a different race. …
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Comments
If patients wish to choose a cardiologist on the basis of that individual’s racial and ethnic identities, they’re obviously free to do so. For even if this were somehow unlawful, who would ever know?
Yet, when it comes to serious cardio problems I suspect most people just want someone who’s really, really good. Because, getting someone who’s really good somehow becomes more important when the stakes are high than when seeking medical treatment for a less serious problem.
Unfortunately, Affirmative Action inevitably stinks up patients’ selections, as one can’t help but wonder whether someone who might have received racial or ethnic preferences actually needed those preferences to become credentialed.
May I suggest that creating rational incentives for patients to discriminate on account of race and ethnicity is not a wise policy- unless your intent is to encourage such discrimination?
Equal opportunity in a color-blind world is our long-term goal. Activists can properly measure our progress toward that goal, but it is short-sighted to move away from that goal toward the goal of “equal outcomes” or worse “heads I win-tails you loose based upon skin color.”
It’s ours but not theirs. The anti-racists want to spread the idea that color-blindness is wrong, but we have to insist it’s right and they are wrong.
Glad to see it. Anyone with a desire for self preservation will judge a physician on the basis of knowledge and ability rather than a political position.
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When your pulse dips into the high 20’s, you might find yourself settling for any cardiologist who is in front of you at the moment. Having a pulse similar to sonar makes one way less picky. For those keeping score at home, 58 days and still vertical. But I am still curious how they got a 5cm diameter device through a 4cm incision.
Well done by Dept. of Ed., spotting the possibly systemic problem at Pitt medical school.