Vanderbilt University Medical Center gave in to a public pressure campaign to end all diversity, equity, and inclusion programs on Wednesday afternoon, just a day after receiving a letter from Tennessee’s Republican senator, Marsha Blackburn, accusing the hospital of “concealing” the DEI work.
In a statement from the university hospital, it said it intends to fully comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order.
“Vanderbilt University Medical Center is eliminating all DEI programs and is fully complying with Executive Actions on DEI,” the statement said. “Shortly after the Executive Orders were issued, VUMC began removing related content on internal and external websites to reflect the termination of these programs. VUMC will continue to comply with federal mandates and directives.”
The announcement comes just one day after Blackburn wrote a letter to VUMC President Jeffrey Balser, accusing the university of concealing its DEI efforts and urging him to comply with Trump’s executive orders against the ideology.
“VUMC has recently scrubbed its website of references to DEI initiatives at the institution, going so far as to password protect web pages tied to DEI and climate activism. Concerningly, though, offices such as the Office of Health Equity, the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, and the Office for Diversity Affairs are seemingly still active,” Blackburn wrote in her letter to Blaser. “President Trump has been clear on this issue. His recent executive orders correctly prohibited DEI programs at federally funded research institutions and ended the recognition of gender identity apart from biological sex.”
“As a beneficiary of federal funding, VUMC has a responsibility to align with the President’s executive orders,” Blackburn went on to add. “Instead of covering up VUMC’s DEI initiatives, I urge you to comply with President Trump’s effort to responsibility allocate taxpayer dollars and immediately cease all DEI initiatives.”
Vanderbilt’s hospital is perhaps best known for its transgender procedures on children, which were revealed by Daily Wire host Matt Walsh. The hospital described the practice of so-called “gender-affirming” care for children as a “big money-maker.”
BREAKING: My team and I have been investigating the transgender clinic at Vanderbilt here in Nashville. Vanderbilt drugs, chemically castrates, and performs double mastectomies on minors. But it gets worse. Here is what we found. Let’s start at the beginning.
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) September 20, 2022
The investigation by Matt Walsh led to Governor Bill Lee calling for an investigation, and ultimately resulted in a Tennessee state law protecting children from medical interventions that seek to change their sex. That law was recently debated in the Supreme Court, where Walsh rallied activists against mutilating children.
