Petition calls on Duke Health to keep politics and DEI out of health care

Color Us United has launched a petition demanding that Duke Health focus on health care instead of promoting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). 

Color Us United describes itself as “[a]n organization created to speak out against those who want to divide America” whose goal is to “[g]ive voice to you and millions of others who are upset by government, corporate and media claims that America is a hateful country.” 

The group condemned Duke Health’s focus on DEI at the expense of quality health care, writing: “Duke has boldly integrated its divisive political ideology into hiring and training, and may potentially be compromising patient care. Duke has offered no scientific explanation as to why their focus on race is medically beneficial or ethical.”

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The petition’s signers are “[c]oncerned and appalled” at “the misguided diversity initiatives at Duke Health and the Duke University School of Medicine,” claiming that “[t]he ideas and practices are unscientific, divisive, unethical, possibly illegal, and potentially dangerous to the citizens of North Carolina.”

“There is no place in medicine for unscientific and non-clinical racial and political ideologies that preference race in hiring. The only thing that matters in health care is finding the best professionals available based on merit – regardless of skin color or gender,” the petition states.

It continues: “Duke’s stated goals of increasing staff diversity are completely misguided. This is not because diversity is a negative or undesirable thing, but because diversity is not what creates better healthcare outcomes.” 

The petition’s signers go on to express their support for meritocracy, saying: “The only thing that matters in medicine is having the very best professionals regardless of skin color.”

The petition also called on Duke Health to revoke its “so-called antiracism pledge,” which, while “well meaning,” uses “political rhetoric and fallacies that have no scientific basis or value in medicine.”

The petition, which currently has more than 2,500 signatures, concludes by stating that North Carolinians “deserve . . . to be treated by the best health care professionals available using the best possible practices and technologies available,” and restates the signatories’ opposition to Duke Health’s “dangerous and unethical practice of pushing divisive and dangerous racial ideology into medical care and hiring.”

Mike Markham, Program Coordinator for Color Us United, told Campus Reform the main goals behind the initiative. 

“We want them (Duke Health) to renounce the pledge. We want them to end hiring practices that are not solely related to merit, because it is just unethical. We would also like them . . .  to reinstate Dr. Kendall,” he said. 

Markham was referring to Dr. Kendall Conger, who, as stated by Color Us United, was an emergency room doctor recently fired by Duke for “questioning the institution’s ideology on race and its place in medicine.”

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“From a fairness standpoint, we don’t believe he should have lost his job,” Markham added. 

Markham also stated that Color Us United is asking for Duke Health Dr. Vignesh Raman to apologize for controversial comments he had previously made.

Specifically, Color Us United is asking Dr. Raman to publicly apologize for “disturbing comments [he made] about being upset when he sees a patient watching FOX News,” and for comments about “his pleasure in Duke serving majority non-white patients.” 

“A medical professional should have zero concern [for] his patient’s skin color, choice of programming, or political affiliation,” Markham said. 

He concluded: “It is contradictory, it is not scientific (the pledge) and it does not seem to make a whole lot of sense.”

Campus Reform has reached out to Duke Health for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.