Dr. DeWeese and Dr. Sowers,
As faculty members in the Center for Africana Studies, we write to express our profound disappointment with Johns Hopkins Medicine’s response to recent attacks on Dr. Sherita Golden, your Chief Diversity Officer, for her January “Diversity Digest” newsletter. In that newsletter, Dr. Golden provided a definition of privilege that aligns with leading research and is widely accepted by academic institutions.
Her definition is also reflected in our own university’s Roadmap on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Rather than respond by supporting Dr. Golden’s educational activities as part of the university’s mission or insisting on the necessity of grappling with uncomfortable realities and contentious concepts, you sent an email “repudiating” the definition she offered, declaring that it “runs counter to the values of our institution, and our mission and commitment to serve everyone equally.”
The response to Dr. Golden offering a rather anodyne definition of privilege is part of a well-organized, bad faith, rightwing crusade against the fundamental principles of evidence-based scholarship that seeks to dismantle educational programs, scholarly pursuits, and bodies of thought focused on diversity and social justice. These assaults also follow a pattern of attacks on scholars of color, especially black women who dare to explore the structures of social and political inequality in the world today. Dr. Golden has been subject to online harassment, doxing, and far more spurious acts. On Friday, January 19, 2024, a digital billboard truck sponsored by the group Do No Harm and bearing Dr. Golden’s likeness circulated the medical campus and featured headlines labeling her work racist, implying that she is herself racist.
This is even more disturbing when we remember Johns Hopkins’s troubled history with the local black community of Baltimore, the east Baltimore community in which Johns Hopkins Medicine sits. As a matter of pedagogy, issues of privilege and the structures of health disparities that disadvantage black people—lower life expectancy rates, higher infant mortality rates, higher maternal mortality rates for black women—should inform the mission of any medical school. This is especially important in light of a 2016 study which found that racial bias in pain perception was tied to the false belief among medical students and residents that biological differences between black and white people meant black people experienced less pain. These are hard truths that must be confronted without qualification or hesitation, and with rigorous scientific study. However, the conceptual clarity to do so can only come through open discussion and engagement, never from disavowal.
As faculty who hail from a range of disciplines, who come to JHU from nearly every area of the globe, and who study the varied social, intellectual, political, historical, and cultural facets that structure racial oppression, bias, access, public policy, and reparations, we are concerned that the response to Dr. Golden threatens to foster a environment that departs radically from the stated goals around Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion outlined by the university; replaces its commitment to robust scholarly inquiry and dialogue with one of fear and hesitancy; and sacrifices the reputation and safety of those placed in positions to help realize Johns Hopkins University’s stated goals of pursuing open discourse and diverse intellectual inquiry.
The Center for Africana Studies faculty joins members of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine chapter of the Student National Medical Association, the Faculty Diversity Council, and the 496 signatories to the Open Letter from Hopkins Employees & Students on JHM’s Commitment to DEI, in requesting Dean DeWeese and President Sowers meet with concerned faculty and students to discuss the newsletter and your response, and to reaffirm the university’s DEI commitment.
Sincerely,
The Faculty in the Center for Africana Studies