You have /5 articles left.
Sign up for a free account or log in.
The vice president and chief diversity officer of Johns Hopkins Medicine stepped down from her position Tuesday after a conservative backlash to a hospital newsletter she wrote in January that defined “privilege” as “a set of unearned benefits given to people who are in a specific social group,” The Baltimore Sun reported Wednesday.
Dr. Sherita Golden, the former diversity officer, identified white people, heterosexuals, men, cisgender people and Christians, among others, as privileged subgroups.
Soon after the newsletter was publicized by the X account @EndWokeness, U.S. representative Andy Harris, Maryland’s only Republican member of Congress, said in a news release that Golden’s memo was “racist” and called for her termination.
Donald Trump Jr. and Elon Musk, X’s owner, also blasted Golden’s comments, with Musk reposting @EndWokeness’s post with the caption “This must end!”
Dr. Theodore DeWeese, dean of the medical faculty and CEO of Hopkins Medicine, and Kevin Sowers, president of Johns Hopkins Health System and executive vice president of Hopkins Medicine, also said in an email to employees that Golden’s comments run “counter to the values of our institution and mission,” according to The Baltimore Banner.
Hundreds of faculty and staff sent a letter in support of Golden to DeWeese and Sowers, saying their email “demonstrates a lack of commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion and fails to recognize the need for us to address inequities in our community.”
Golden, who will remain employed at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine as a professor of endocrinology and metabolism, issued an apology in response to the criticism.
“The intent of the newsletter is to inform and support an inclusive community at Hopkins, but the language of this definition clearly did not meet that goal,” she wrote. “In fact, because it was overly simplistic and poorly worded, it had the opposite effect of being exclusionary and hurtful to members of our community.”
Two petitions were started in support of Golden, according to The Baltimore Sun, and after her resignation Tuesday the Black Faculty and Staff Association for Johns Hopkins sent a letter to Ronald J. Daniels, president of Johns Hopkins University, stating that her “departure leaves a significant void within our institution,” according to The Baltimore Banner.
“The institution unjustly disavowed and repudiated her for the very work that she had been tasked to do,” the letter said. “We cannot overstate the impact of her departure on our institution and the communities we serve.”
