How DEI Becomes Discrimination

The NIH First program wasn’t supposed to involve outright preferences. Public records show how that’s worked in practice

By John Sailer. He is a senior fellow at the National Association of Scholars. Excerpts:

"there is evidence that many universities have engaged in outright racial preferences under the aegis of DEI. Hundreds of documents that I acquired through public-records requests provide a rare paper trail of universities closely scrutinizing the race of faculty job applicants. The practice not only appears widespread; it is encouraged and funded by the federal government.

At Vanderbilt University Medical Center, a large hiring initiative targets specific racial groups—promising to hire 18 to 20 scientists “who are Black, Latinx, American Indian, and Pacific Islander.” Discussing a related University of New Mexico program, one professor quipped in an email, “I don’t want to hire white men for sure.”

Both initiatives are supported by the National Institutes of Health through its Faculty Institutional Recruitment for Sustainable Transformation program, or First. The program gives grants for DEI-focused “cluster hiring” at universities and medical schools, promising eventually to spend about a quarter-billion dollars.

A key requirement is that recipient institutions heavily value diversity statements while selecting faculty. The creators of the program reasoned that by heavily weighing commitment to DEI, they could prompt schools to hire more minorities but without direct racial preferences. That’s the rationale behind DEI-focused “cluster hiring,” an increasingly common practice in academia. The documents—which include emails, grant proposals, progress reports and hiring records—suggest that many NIH First grant recipients restrict hiring on the basis of race or “underrepresented” status, violating NIH’s stated policies and possibly civil-rights law.

In grant proposals, several recipients openly state their intention to restrict whom they hire by demographic category. Vanderbilt’s NIH First grant proposal states that it will “focus on the cluster hiring of faculty from minoritized racial and ethnic groups, specifically Black, Latinx, American Indian, and Pacific Islander scientists.” The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and the University of Texas at Dallas jointly proposed hiring 10 scholars “from underrepresented groups,” noting that the NIH First program specifically identifies racial minorities and women as underrepresented." 

"In April 2023, a professor running the University of New Mexico’s cluster hire emailed Jessica Calzola, the NIH program official overseeing the First program, to ask whether Asian-Americans count as underrepresented."

"Ms. Calzola reiterated the program’s official policy"

"candidates are to be evaluated and considered based on their credentials and not race/ethnicity/gender, etc.—all hiring decisions are to be made following the law and avoiding any type of bias (as you have stated and acknowledged).”

Ms. Calzola’s seemingly straightforward response confused her correspondent. “I am now wondering if I am missing something in terms of what we are supposed to be doing,” the professor emailed other members of the leadership team."

"“My first thought is that Jessica has to write about hires in this manner (she’s hinted at that before on zoom).” (Ms. Calzola referred my inquiry to an NIH spokeswoman, who said in a statement: “Consistent with NIH practice and U.S. federal law, funded programs may not use the race, ethnicity, or sex . . . of a prospective candidate as an eligibility or selection criteria.”)

A colleague responded: “For me as long as we are diversifying our departments and go with what we wrote in the proposal I am happy.” She then made clear her intention to keep one specific group out of consideration: “I don’t want to hire white men for sure, we did a very good job in the grant with the tables and numbers and that’s what we should follow in my opinion.”"

"Records show a repeated tension between the NIH First program’s official nondiscrimination policy and how the funded projects have played out"

"multiple programs have stated their intention to limit hires to those with “underrepresented” status. One job advertisement, for a First role at Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine, notes: “Successful candidates will be early stage investigators who are Black, Latinx, or from a disadvantaged background (as defined by NIH).”

Some grantees even admit such preferences in documents sent to and reviewed by the NIH."

"Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits race discrimination in employment."

"universities can’t refuse to hire someone, or prefer one candidate over another, because of race or sex. But emails show that this has been happening."

"UNM’s grant proposal explains that “at each point in which the applicant pool is narrowed, all applicants from underrepresented groups are given a ‘second-look’ before they are eliminated.”"

"UNM appears to have violated NIH First policy, which states that programs “may not discriminate against any group in the hiring process.” The UNM spokeswoman said in a statement that “the email correspondence among members of the UNM FIRST Leadership Team do [sic] not represent the University of New Mexico’s values nor does it comport with the expectations we have of our faculty” and that “as a result of this unfortunate circumstance,” the university is instituting a required “faculty search training/workshop for all . . . faculty search committee members.”"

"other universities signaled to NIH that they also intended to engage in race and sex preferences."

"Records repeatedly show NIH First grantees following through on their promises."

"the San Diego program even divvies up certain faculty duties by race: “Whenever possible, the chair of the hiring committees should be a faculty member of color”; “the hiring committees will be required to have at least two (50% recommended) faculty of color”; and so on."