A federal government health agency is under fire for a $241 million taxpayer-funded plan to promote scientists from minority backgrounds who check DEI checklists over the best candidates.
Conservatives are taking aim at the National Institutes of Health’s Institutional Recruitment for Sustainable Transformation (First) program, which pays universities to hire biomedical researchers in a push for “inclusive excellence.”
The right-wing National Association of Scholars (NAS) accuses the NIH of putting an “ideological agenda” above quality research, and the transparency watchdog Open the Books calls it a waste of taxpayer money.
The NIH did not return DailyMail.com’s request for comment.
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Cornell University has been involved in the Faculty Institutional Recruitment for Sustainable Transformation program
The case highlights diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts to get more underrepresented talent, such as women and minorities, into desirable jobs, which critics say will harm the opportunities of heterosexual white men.
In particular, it focuses on the controversial “DEI statements” that have become mandatory for recruitment at many liberal universities, which conservative academics dismiss as an ideological litmus test.
According to Open the Books, the First program is expected to cost $241 million over nine years.
Since 2021, it has sent grants to 16 colleges.
The most recent funding round of four awards totaled $64 million.
Recent recipients include the University of South Carolina, which received $13 million, the University of New Mexico ($15.6 million) and Northwestern University ($16 million), the group said in a report Tuesday.
Florida State University, Cornell University, the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Tuskegee University have also benefited from the scheme.
NAS colleague John Sailer says the plan promotes scientists who pay lip service to DEI, rather than those who are the best in computational biology, genetics, neurobiology and other areas of research.
The National Institutes of Health says it wants to promote “inclusive excellence.” In the photo: cancer researchers from Stanford University
Adam Andrzejewski of watchdog Open the Books says taxpayers are spending $241 million on diversity hiring spree
Applicants must submit “diversity statements,” and those who say they plan to “treat everyone the same,” regardless of skin color, are at a disadvantage, says Sailer, who has been given university sections.
Those who use such DEI buzzwords like “equality” and say they are pushing for racial justice are more likely to get ahead, it is claimed.
Sailer highlights the recruitment at Cornell University, where university documents show that an applicant’s “statement of contribution to diversity” would be given “significant weight in the evaluation.”
“The information shows how the NIH is pushing an ideological agenda,” Sailer wrote in The Wall Street Journal.
The agency “encourages universities and medical schools to vet potential biomedical scientists for false ideas about diversity,” he added.
The NIH program and universities are recklessly promoting the wrong candidates at the expense of quality scientific research, he added.
“In medical research, lives depend on prioritizing excellence,” he wrote.
“The NIH distorts that value, subordinates it to political ideology, and endangers those it is supposed to serve.”
National Association of Scholars fellow John Sailer says “wrong thinking” against DEI is being punished
The NIH did not answer our questions, but says on its website that it aims to maintain high standards while bringing more underrepresented groups into laboratories.
The project aims to “influence inclusive excellence within research environments and ultimately diversify the biomedical research workforce,” it says.
For some, DEI schemes are important and necessary because they help overcome historical racism and sexism and make it easier for people of all backgrounds to get ahead in schools, colleges and offices.
But critics say it’s a form of reverse discrimination that targets straight, white men.
DEI schemes are facing a backlash from conservative legal action groups – especially those funded by taxpayers.
The University of Florida last month ended all DEI positions and ended diversity programs in the state’s publicly funded education system, in accordance with new state rules.
According to national research from The Heritage Foundation, DEI associates now account for more than 3.4 positions for every 100 professors, fueling fears of a booming industry that some say is little more than a woke box-check exercise.