A medical internship program is under fire for allegedly racially discriminating against otherwise qualified applicants, requiring that applicants must “identify” as black or African American.
Do No Harm filed a complaint on behalf of a member on Thursday requesting the federal government investigate an internship offered by the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine (ARM). The anonymous member was qualified academically and met all other requirements but was rejected because of his race.
The complaint was filed to the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) against ARM for their internship program, GROW. The program offers paid opportunities in regenerative medicine for black undergraduate and graduate students, the website states.
“Once you sacrifice the opportunity to take a more qualified person for a less qualified person simply because of the way they look, you’ve sacrificed the opportunity to really do the best research,” Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, Do No Harm board chair, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“We just want them to do the right thing,” Goldfarb said. “We want them to obey the law, and we want them to deal with people based on their individual merit and not based on their racial and immutable characteristics.”
🚨🚨 BREAKING: Do No Harm has filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine (ARM), an international advocacy group, for “racially discriminatory” practices favoring black students. 🧵
— Do No Harm (@donoharm) July 18, 2024
The racial requirements violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race in hiring processes, the complaint states. Do No Harm argues that Title VII makes it unlawful to racially discriminate against an individual in connection to “apprenticeship or other training or retraining” programs.
Do No Harm notes in the complaint that the EEOC must investigate any violations of Title VII, stating that the EEOC can receive any information from a person if there is concern about a violation. The EEOC allows anonymous complaints to be filed on behalf of others. (RELATED: Med School Walks Back Alleged Race-Based Programs After Federal Investigation)
“The opportunity to engage in the sciences should be open to the best and the brightest and never be based on the color of one’s skin,” Goldfarb said in a press release.
Do No Harm is a nationwide membership organization composed of students, patients and policymakers aiming to protect healthcare from radical, divisive and discriminatory ideologies, according to the complaint.
ARM is an advocacy organization supporting the benefits of engineered cell therapies and genetic medicines for patients, healthcare systems and society, according to their website.
“The point of research is to produce information that benefits the American people who are funding these organizations, and they really sort of lost track of what their purpose is when they do this,” Goldfarb told the DCNF.
“We’re fighting with people who have just terrible, terrible ideas,” Goldfarb told the DCNF.
ARM did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
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