The NIH Sacrifices Scientific Rigor for DEI

Its First program pushes institutions to hire medical researchers based on their ideological commitment.

By John Sailer

The Wall Street Journal

March 12, 2024


Thanks to a grant from the National Institutes of Health, Cornell University is able to support several professors in fields including genetics, computational biology and neurobiology. In its funding proposal, the university emphasizes a strange metric for evaluating hard scientists: Each applicant’s “statement on contribution to diversity” was to “receive significant weight in the evaluation.”


It might seem counterintuitive to prioritize “diversity statements” while hiring neurobiologists—but not at the NIH. The agency for several years has pushed this practice across the country through its Faculty Institutional Recruitment for Sustainable Transformation program—First for short—which funds diversity-focused faculty hiring in the biomedical sciences.

Through dozens of public-records requests, I have acquired thousands of pages of documents related to the program—grant proposals, emails, hiring rubrics and more. The information reveals how the NIH enforces an ideological agenda, prompting universities and medical schools to vet potential biomedical scientists for wrongthink regarding diversity.


The First program requires all grant recipients to use “diversity statements” for their newly funded hires. Northwestern University suggests it will adapt a diversity-statement rubric created by the University of California, Berkeley. It isn’t alone. A year ago I acquired the rubrics used by the NIH First programs at the University of South Carolina and the University of New Mexico, which I discussed in these pages. Both used Berkeley’s rubric almost verbatim.


That rubric penalizes job candidates for espousing colorblind equality and gives low scores to those who say they intend to “treat everyone the same.” It likewise docks candidates who express skepticism about the practice of dividing students and faculty into racially segregated “affinity groups.”


These responses aren’t merely administrative; the requirements carry serious weight throughout the NIH First programs, often valued on par with conventional measures of academic excellence. The University of Alabama at Birmingham and Tuskegee University jointly received an NIH grant in 2021 to hire researchers studying cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The institutions noted in their proposal that “the statement of diversity will be heavily weighted during the selection process.”


Other programs have sought to redefine excellence with an ideological gloss. As a part of its First program, San Diego State University required search committee members to attend an “equity-minded hiring” seminar. A handout for the program discusses redefining the concept of “merit” by incorporating such “equity-minded” indicators as an education in social justice and “experience acting as an equity advocate.” Another handout, an applicant screening tool, prompts hiring committees to assess whether scientists are “critically conscious,” that is, whether they have “the ability to speak with complexity” on DEI.


The records underscore that scientists simply can’t get hired in the program without an outstanding DEI score. Northwestern’s grant progress report describes an evaluation rubric that equally weighs a “commitment to diversity” and research potential—a remarkable value judgment for a program focused on cancer, cardiovascular health and neuroscience.

The priority is especially troubling given what DEI programs typically entail. The University of South Carolina promises to integrate critical race theory into its program’s design and to emulate activist public-health scholars in their “efforts to bring critical race theory to the forefront of society.”


Others, like Drexel University and Vanderbilt University Medical Center, fully embrace the language of left-wing identity politics. “Our culture and climate,” Northwestern’s proposal confesses, “was founded on values and ideas of White, Eurocentric males and perpetuated by structures that enable continued marginalization of URG”—underrepresented group—“faculty.” The program promises to create “Safe Space Ambassadors” to host discussions on topics like “navigating intersectional workplace oppressions.”



Lawmakers have begun to push back against DEI in general and diversity statements in particular. The University of North Carolina Board of Governors has effectively banned the use of such statements, as have legislators in Texas, Florida and Utah. Even liberal professors have argued that diversity statements amount to unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination.

Yet with the NIH’s help, the policy persists in red and blue states. The University of New Mexico’s program, which focuses on neuroscience and data science, devotes a third of the points on its applicant screening rubric to criteria such as “DEI Knowledge” and “DEI Track Record.” Florida State University’s program, which has hired faculty in psychology and nursing, devotes 28% of its rubric to DEI.


The latter example raises questions about compliance with anti-DEI laws. In June 2023, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed legislation banning both diversity statements and DEI offices at state universities. That month the University of Texas at Dallas and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center received NIH First grants after declaring in their joint proposal: “Our goal is to become the public face of DEI for the Dallas metro area, and as a model for the nation.”


The agency’s program wields influence even beyond the institutions it funds. Tufts University’s Provost Caroline Genco spearheaded an application for the NIH First program in 2021. Tufts evidently didn’t get the funding but has nevertheless announced a universitywide DEI-themed cluster hire, led in part by Ms. Genco. Ohio State University, the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School and the University of Cincinnati likewise applied for the program, didn’t receive funding, but pursued DEI-focused cohort hires anyway.


The NIH First program matters because it supports biomedical researchers and thus biomedical science. In medical research, lives depend on putting excellence first. The NIH distorts that value, subordinating it to political ideology and endangering those it’s supposed to serve.


Mr. Sailer is a senior fellow at the National Association of Scholars.

Where Liberty and Learning Endure

June 29, 2026
As America commemorates 250 years of independence, we reflect on the enduring principles of liberty and learning that have defined Davidson College for nearly two centuries.

Bankruptcy and Higher Education

June 21, 2026
By Todd Zywicki The Wall Street Journal June 21, 2026 Auburn University is known for its agricultural and STEM programs, its flight school and athletic programs. But the land-grant university recently became notable for another reason: The board of trustees is taking control of the school back from its faculty. The board began seizing the university’s academic programs—including curriculum, course offerings, degree requirements and academic credentials—at its June 5 meeting. The board also dissolved the faculty senate and replaced it with an advisory council to the president, which includes two faculty members from each of the university’s colleges and additional members appointed by the president. The board’s assertion of authority mirrors incoming mandates by the Alabama Legislature restricting the role of faculty senates in the state’s public university system. Predictably, Auburn’s faculty has responded with howls of outrage, decrying these intrusions on the faculty’s authority over academic operations. How could outsiders appointed through a political process have the expertise to make such delicate decisions? I’ve been a professor at a state university for almost 30 years, and I am sympathetic up to a point. But before becoming a professor I was a bankruptcy lawyer. And bankruptcy law teaches an important lesson for how academia can respond to this moment. Bankruptcy gives businesses an opportunity to admit mistakes, reform and emerge stronger. Successful enterprises don’t need bankruptcy lawyers. But when an enterprise loses its way, it goes into receivership. Most universities aren’t financially bankrupt but have lost their mission and direction. Society has long recognized certain institutions’ authority to manage their own affairs. Two notable examples are licensed professionals—such as doctors and lawyers—and universities. Universities, even state universities, have run their enterprises with minimal external oversight. Faculties enjoyed substantial rights of self-governance because they committed to higher standards than those required by ordinary jobs. Professors would establish and maintain standards of scholarly integrity, freedom of speech and inquiry, and rigorous dedication to merit-based assessment of research in specialized areas. They policed their own house, enforcing norms of truth-seeking, maintaining scholarly integrity and rigor, and ensuring that students emerged with basic knowledge, employable skills and civic competency. But over the past several decades, commitment to those values collapsed. Surveys by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression consistently reveal fear among students and faculty around expressing unfashionable ideas. Universities have seen shout-downs, cancellations and even violence against speakers. Merit and quality yielded to “diversity” and “equity.” Truth-seeking has been displaced by faddish theories and ideologically charged teaching and research. Professors design esoteric departments and teach niche classes to cliques of activist students while the needs of other students and taxpayers for real education go unaddressed. Like companies I represented, universities have lost their way. And many have proved either unable or unwilling to self-correct. When that happens, it is appropriate to put institutions into receivership until they reform and rededicate themselves to their mission. At Auburn incoming students must now take certain required civics and history courses to master basic competency in U.S. history and government. To ensure the classes actually meet that objective, professors will have to make their syllabi publicly available. In the classroom, instructors will be expected to stick to the matter at hand and avoid free-ranging political punditry. Just as other companies can learn from the ones that go bankrupt, other institutions of higher education can learn something from Auburn: Fix what’s broken, or someone else might fix it for you. Mr. Zywicki is a professor at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School. He was a Dartmouth College trustee, 2005-09. https://www.wsj.com/opinion/bankruptcy-and-higher-education-4c2b178e

Race Preferences Are Falling Nationwide

June 19, 2026
By the Editorial Board The Wall Street Journal June 19, 2026 The Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling against racial preferences is turning out to be a landmark with profound consequences as its influence spreads. On Thursday the famously progressive Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled unanimously that a state program that issued scholarships based on race violates the U.S. Constitution. Justice Annette Ziegler wrote for the court that the Constitution requires “that every person ‘must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual—not on the basis of race,’” and that the state cannot “use race as a factor in affording educational opportunities among its citizens.” That must have been painful for the activist liberal majority on the court. In a concurrence, Wisconsin Chief Justice Jill Karofsky took some shots at Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard College (2023) before acknowledging that “I am bound by the precedent set forth in SFFA” and other Supreme Court rulings “when interpreting the Fourteenth Amendment.” The case was brought by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty against a 1985 Badger State law that reserved need-based scholarships through a grant program for “Black American,” “American Indian,” “Hispanic” and some Southeast Asian undergraduate students enrolled in Wisconsin’s private and technical colleges. Last week the Iowa Supreme Court ruled that a scholarship program earmarked for black University of Iowa students studying physical sciences was “impracticable” under SFFA. State governments would be wise to repeal these discriminatory grant programs, or the courts will do it for them.
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