Duke Health Accused of “Vile Racism” by Trump Administration

By Cash Michaels –

An official letter from Trump Administration Cabinet secretaries Linda McMahon of the Education Dept. and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. of the Dept. of Health and Human Services, accused Duke Health of “vile racism” in “hiring, student admissions, governance, patient care and other operations …[that] endanger human lives.”

The July 28, 2025 missive defined “vile racism” as “affirmative action” that “undermines America’s commitment to merit-based justice and violates the nation’s civil rights laws…,” thus, the letter continued, “[breaking] faith with patients….”

Those allegations “render Duke Health unfit for any further financial relationship with the federal government.”

The extraordinary letter offered not one concrete example of any of its incendiary charges, but that didn’t stop Kennedy and McMahon from freezing $108 million in federal funding that has been designated for both the hospital and the university.

There will also be a federal investigation into “the illegal use of racial preferences” in hiring, promotion, financial aid, admissions, recruitment and mentoring. And Duke Health officials were ordered to establish a “Merit and Civil Rights Committee” to probe allegations of racial bias, and provide documented proof of doing so.

News of the letter was first reported by Fox News. At press time, neither Duke University nor Duke Health had publicly responded to the Kennedy-McMahon letter.

Subsequent published reports suggest there was a federal complaint lodged against Duke in March by the anti-diversity-in-medicine nonprofit group “Do No Harm,” which alleged Duke Medical’s “…policies and programs …violate the Civil Rights Act.”

According to the News and Observer of Raleigh, those “include initiatives that expanded the medical school’s minority enrollment and the school’s “Minority Recruitment and Retention Committee.” The News and Observer also reported that Do No Harm is on record as suing the University of California at Los Angeles Medical School and the society of Military Orthopedic Surgeons for “similar diversity initiatives.”

The anti-DEI group has also sued the governor of Montana, the University of Washington School of Medicine, and the Pfizer Pharmaceutical Corp, forcing all to either discontinue or make drastic changes to their diversity, equity, and inclusion policies and programs.

Meanwhile, the US Dept. of Education has also opened a DEI civil rights probe of the Duke Law Journal.

According to the News and Observer, “… a conservative news outlet reported the academic publication factored law students’ racial and ethnic identities when selecting editors. In some, if not all, cases, select applicants were afforded the opportunity to be awarded extra points based on their personal statements that referenced their race or ethnicity,’ the Education Department wrote in a July 28 statement.”

Officials with the Duke Law Journal had not addressed the allegations by press time.