It means his team’s “application is more likely to lose on ‘diversity’ grounds,” but he thinks it’s “immoral and narcissistic to use race to gain an advantage over other applicants. All that should matter is the merit of my application.”
The NIH’s insistence on DEI criteria is “a double wrong. Not only is the system rigged based on nonscientific—and possibly illegal—criteria; it encourages me to join in the rigging.”
Do I deserve to jump the line? If I say yes, I may play a leading role in ending the scourge of atherosclerosis—also known as hardening of the arteries. If I play fair, I may lose the opportunity to save people around the world from heart attacks and strokes. I’m angry at the National Institutes of Health for putting me in this position. I’m even angrier it has done so in the name of racial equity.
My quandary comes down to whether I should “check the box” on an upcoming NIH grant application attesting to my recent African heritage. Since at least 2015, the NIH has asserted its belief in the intrinsic superiority of racially diverse research teams, all but stating that such diversity influences funding decisions. My family’s origins qualify me under the federal definition of African-American. Yet I feel it’s immoral and narcissistic to use race to gain an advantage over other applicants. All that should matter is the merit of my application and the body of my work, which is generally accepted as foundational in atherosclerosis research.