University shuts down ‘antiracism’ center after DCNF exposes founder’s flawed research

The University of Minnesota (UMN) announced Thursday it is shutting down its Center for Antiracism Research for Health Equity after its founder was credibly accused of plagiarism and biased research.

The center will close on May 30, according to MPR News. Rachel Hardeman, the center’s founder and former director, resigned in April, following accusations that her research career was plagued by plagiarism and flawed studies attempting to assign racism to poor outcomes in medicine.

“The University of Minnesota School of Public Health remains strongly committed to our values and advancing health equity, which is central to who we are and how we teach, conduct research, and engage with communities,” Dean of UMN’s School of Public Health Melinda Pettigrew said in the announcement of the center’s closure, according to MPR. “We are working with our staff, faculty, and students to ensure a thoughtful and organized transition in order to carry our work forward with intention, care, and a focus on collaborative impact.”

In an opinion posted to the Minnesota Star Tribune, Hardeman denied that her departure was related to the plagiarism scandal.

“I made the decision to depart from the University of Minnesota more than a year ago,” Hardeman wrote. “So, when I read local media headlines suggesting my planned departure was somehow connected to this long-resolved matter, I felt that familiar sting that many of us know too well — the weight of mischaracterization.”

Hardeman did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

Hardeman was a coauthor of a controversial study that attempted to argue that infant mortality is higher for black newborns with white doctors because of racial bias. However, the study failed to account for low birth weight as a factor for mortality, which, when this variable is included, leaves no link between black newborn mortality and white doctors.

The study also originally asserted that white babies died less frequently with white doctors, though this fact was intentionally omitted because, according to notes from Hardeman’s coauthor Brad N. Greenwood, it “undermines the narrative.”

That study was apparently used as justification for several diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) measures, including by Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson in her dissent in the 2023 Supreme Court ruling against affirmative action. It has received a total of 786 citations in the scientific literature.

Hardeman also faces accusations of plagiarizing the hypothesis and methodologies in a National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant from her mentee’s dissertation proposal in 2019.

“When I say ‘verbatim’ I mean, she performed a find+replace in my document, and replaced all instances of ‘Mike Brown’ with ‘Philando Castile,’ and all instances of ‘St. Louis, Missouri, with ‘Minneapolis, Minnesota,’ and submitted this to the NIH as if it were her own,” one of Hardeman’s former mentees alleged.

UMN did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

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