one more DEI victim: I Was Fired From Old Dominion...

前不久，看了这个学校的李少民教授的访谈，说他们那里DEI有多严重。这篇文章佐证他的讲法。

 

WSJ:

 

I Was Fired From Old Dominion for Asking Questions About DEI

I’m a doctor. Before being sacked from the board, I’d requested to review the medical school curriculum.

By 

Stanley Goldfarb

 

 

When the presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania were forced out of their jobs, I wondered: How did those schools’ boards of directors let their ships come so close to sinking? Having now been forced out of a university board myself, I wonder if most board members fear rocking the boat until it has already capsized.

On Jan. 31, the Democrat-controlled Virginia Senate fired me from the 17-member Old Dominion University Board of Visitors. I’d taken my seat on the board in July, when Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin appointed me, but the General Assembly declined to confirm my appointment, along with 13 other Youngkin appointees to various public boards and agencies.

Having overseen curriculum at an Ivy League medical school for 13 years, I was excited to help Old Dominion uphold the highest standards of medical education and practice. As part of that work, I intended to see how deep the dangerous ideology of “diversity, equity and inclusion” had permeated the medical school and other parts of the university.

I never got the chance. My first interaction with the board came in late July, when I attended orientation. I asked P. Murry Pitts, the rector who leads the board and was appointed by Virginia’s previous Democratic governor, if I could peruse the medical school curriculum. All I needed was an access code for the online portal, but the rector declined. When I repeated my request in an August email, he stood firm. It wasn’t the board’s responsibility “to run the university,” he wrote. Its “sole purpose . . . is to govern the university.”

How can we govern if we don’t know what the various parts of the university are teaching? While the rector pointed out that the board’s most important job is selecting the president, the board’s website makes clear that we have “the power to make all rules and regulations concerning the University.” It’s hard to make policy if you aren’t allowed to look at something as pivotal as the curriculum. 

The following month, after my first full board meeting, I asked Mr. Pitts if I could meet with Alfred Abuhamad, dean of the medical school. I assured Mr. Pitts via email that I had no intention of disrupting the school’s operations. I simply wanted to hear from Dr. Abuhamad “about his plans and gain a better insight into the institution.” The rector again rebuffed me, saying it didn’t pertain to our duty “to oversee the strategic direction” of the university. Hogwash—hearing about a dean’s plans is the definition of strategic direction.

Mr. Pitts did, however, arrange for me to speak with Brian Hemphill, Old Dominion’s president. In a Zoom meeting on Nov. 4, I repeated my requests, but Mr. Hemphill denied me all the same, despite his lack of experience in supervising a medical school. I told him that boards are supposed to supervise, and when they don’t, you end up with situations like at Harvard and Penn. He responded by asking what happened there. He obviously knew, so I suppose he wanted me to issue some sort of threat. I didn’t take the bait. 

Instead, I came to the December board meeting with a new plan: to introduce a resolution asking for the medical school’s admissions data. I wanted to make sure it was upholding the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling ending the discriminatory practice of affirmative action. I suspected it wasn’t, since at a Christmas party, Dr. Abuhamad had told me the school allows different MCAT scores for different groups of admitted students. He didn’t elaborate, and while he could have been referring to something other than race, I was determined to learn the truth.

Desiring to maintain collegiality, I privately told the rector about my plan. He asked me to hold off and share my concerns with him separately. I agreed, though I planned to introduce the resolution anyway at the board meeting in April. The Virginia Senate has deprived me of that chance. Tellingly, the Democrats who run the legislature didn’t fire every Youngkin appointee. They fired only a handful of us, including a colleague at Old Dominion who shared my concerns and a George Mason University board member whose main concern is fighting antisemitism.

It’s hard not to conclude that I was fired for asking questions that academic elites and their Democratic allies don’t want answered. But whatever they may be hiding, the truth will come to light. I fear that Virginia’s universities are destined for a scandal like Harvard and Penn not long ago.

Dr. Goldfarb, a former associate dean of curriculum at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, is chairman of Do No Harm.