Dr. Norman Wang, a professor of medical school, was suddenly” canceled” after he published a critical article thoroughly examining the history of racial activity in medical schools and doctoral medical knowledge, and the world of MedTwitter was brimming with tales about him in August 2020.
He was removed from his scholarship director status and forbidden from having contact with medical students, people, or colleagues, but that was just the beginning. The total picture of what was done to Wang has suddenly been made public following a lengthy identification.
The university’s behavior is almost as startling as its attempt to evade First Amendment duty through a sophisticated shell game where it passed the blame onto a companion organization it claims is not a state professional. According to latest files, it is obvious that the University of Pittsburgh was in charge of what occurred.
Punished for Opposition to Race Discrimination
Since 2008, Wang has held positions at both the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center ( UPMC) and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Generally connected, Pitt and UPMC are carefully tied by a set of marriage contracts. Pitt appoints one- next of UPMC’s board of directors, and UPMC provides financial support to the School of Medicine. Pitt is the clinical director of UPMC, while UPMC is the director of clinical affairs.
Wang, a doctor, sees individuals at UPMC clinics and publishes scientific study. Until August 2020, he furthermore taught medical individuals, residents, and colleagues, and was the chairman of a scholarship program in respiratory physiology.
Dr. Wang expressed concern about recent, so-called diversity and inclusion activities that were having an impact on cardiologist in 2019. A new diversification measurement, developed by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), was one of them, to assess student medical training courses. According to his observations, such programs, even for those they are supposed to help, promoted improper cultural preferences and had a few negative effects.
Dr. Wang researched the story of culture and cultural preferences in health education and wrote an educational article on diversity and the cardiology workforce with these issues in mind. It raised questions about the legality, effectiveness, and wisdom of such programs. According to the article, the medical profession has failed to accomplish its goal of boosting the percentages of underrepresented races and ethnicities in the field, based on the data that is currently available.
Wang wrote an article for the JAHA journal. After a rigorous peer- review process, JAHA agreed to publish Wang’s article on March 14, 2020, as a 17- page” white paper” titled,” Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity: Evolution of Race and Ethnicity Considerations for the Cardiology Workforce in the United States of America From 1969 to 2019“.
Coordinated Response
The article remained largely dormant until the end of July 2020, when a Pitt trustee ( and a UPMC board member ), Dr. Vaughn Clagette, learned of it and demanded action be taken against Dr. Wang. The complaint quickly reached Wang’s superiors at Pitt: Dr. Samir Saba, the chief of the Division of Cardiology, Dr. Mark Gladwin, the chair of the Department of Medicine, and Dr. Anantha Shekhar, the dean of the School of Medicine.
What came after was a concerted effort by Pitt and UPMC officials to overthrow Wang’s public criticism of racial preferences.
On July 31, 2020, Wang was summoned to a meeting with Drs. Saba and Kathryn Berlacher, both dually employed by Pitt and UPMC, to confront him about his piece. Aba criticized the article, making false claims that it attributed particular traits or characteristics to particular groups. Berlacher, for her part, called Wang a racist.
Saba said,” You know what we are trying to do here, Norm”.
After some discussion, Wang said,” I just wanted us to follow the law”.
Saba responded by saying that “laws can change”. And Dr. Wang was told he could no longer be program director.
Berlacher and her coworkers started making disparaging remarks about Wang on Twitter after the meeting. On Aug. 2, 2020, Berlacher posted, “@PittCardiology I’m looking at you. What do we represent? What do you think of this opinion piece that interprets data and quotes people incorrectly? @JAHA_AHA this is scientifically invalid and racist”.
She then responded, “@PittCardiology stands for diversity equity and inclusion across the board,” using the Pitt Cardiology Twitter account. This article uses misquotes, false interpretations and racist thinking to defend a single person’s conclusion. We are furious that @JAHA_AHA published this obscene and revolting article.
On Aug. 4, Saba and Berlacher notified Wang that he could no longer have any role in medical education and could have no contact with medical students, residents, or fellows. He was given a second chance in outlying hospitals where trainees would not be present.
The next day, several faculty members, including Saba, Berlacher, and Shekhar, sent an email to JAHA, claiming Wang’s article contained “blatant scientific falsehoods and misquotes”, and requested that it be withdrawn. Their assertion was false, but it succeeded. Wang’s article was later retracted by JAHA without giving him any input, and it even published its own abject apology.
Although efforts were made over the course of the following months to defend Wang’s academic freedom, including those made by the federal Department of Education and Pitt’s Tenure and Academic Freedom Committee, were unsuccessful.
Dr. Wang sued in December 2020, being represented by the Center for Individual Rights, a nonprofit public interest law firm, for which I am the deputy general counsel.
The Courts ‘ Will Support the Law,
Wang’s current iteration claims that university employees harmed him by making allegations that he had been subject to unlawful race use in graduate medical education programs jointly run by UPMC and Pitt.
The university has alleged that Wang’s professional discipline came from the private UPMC and not the state-run university in an attempt to shield itself from liability under the First Amendment.
This after- the- fact excuse has no weight. Nowhere in Wang’s ordeal did his managers claim that they were acting only as UPMC officials. Indeed, they could not. Dean Shekhar, the dean of Pitt’s School of Medicine who played a significant role in the incident, had no power over the UPMC. In addition, if its logical conclusion were to be followed, that argument would give the university an extraordinary authority to repress academic freedom.
The court should resolve all of these issues in Wang’s favor, based on the evidence that was discovered during the discovery and filed with the court in connection with the parties ‘ motions for summary judgment. He was punished for his published academic writing and speeches that defied discrimination from Pitt officials, who never distinguished between their Pitt and UPMC positions.
Imagine if a government agency could easily be accused of violating your constitutional rights by denying that it was acting in the name of the government. Although it seems absurd, Pitt attempted to avoid liability by sanctioning a professor for expressing racism in an article in a prestigious academic journal.
The Center for Individual Rights ‘ J. Robert Renner serves as its deputy general counsel.
