Our policy is to reprint only original material. However, Kendall Conger, a former Emergency Medicine Physician in the Duke University Health System, was fired from Duke University Health System for refusing to get with its DEI program. He has permitted us to reprint his farewell letter to that institution, and, because the letter itself is newsworthy, we have made this very limited exception to our usual rule.

Some precepts are inviolate, non-negotiable, and irreplaceable. America’s preeminent precept was penned by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence: “all men are created equal.” At Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln reiterated this core belief: “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” It justified the Civil War. Equality of its individuals was America’s foundational proclamation. Martin Luther King, Jr. appealed to it in his “I Have A Dream” speech: “When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.”

Image: Duke University School of Medicine. Public domain.

However, Duke advocates replacing the equality of American individuals for the equality of American groups- calling it “equity.” Substituting equity for equality is a paradigm shift and a clash of visions. Individuals are equal, groups are not. The question I posed to Duke setting me at odds with them (and they with me) was: “Please explain why equity is preferable to equality.” Duke refused to answer despite inviting any “questions or concerns” employees had regarding their “Pledge” of allegiance to equity rather than equality. My repeated question given in person and in writing went repeatedly unanswered. Had Duke been forthcoming they would have said something like:

“Duke believes white people are racists. The primary (perhaps only) reason Blacks as a group are less wealthy and have poorer health outcomes is due to the unconscious racism of white people. Duke believes Blacks will never be as well off as white people under the American meritocratic system because it primarily advantages whites. The sole hope Blacks have for obtaining economic and health parity is for it to be given to them. We will know when unconscious racism has been overcome when health and financial outcomes among groups are equal.” That is- you are a racist until outcomes are equal.

For Duke, the supposed deleterious effect of unconscious thoughts necessitates ending the free enterprise system because Blacks cannot compete in a free-market economy given that whites are unconscious racists. It is insuperable. Never-mind the median household income for groups in America from top earners down is: Indians, Filipino, Taiwanese, Sri Lankan, Japanese, Malaysian, Chinese, Pakistani, and then White Americans. America is a success story.

Duke is leading us away from the successful melting-pot vision to the dreadfully unsuccessful socialist vision with this single flash of (pseudo)inspiration- “whites are unconscious racists.” What becomes foundational to Duke is not that people are “created equal” but that whites are “unconscious racists.” Duke cultivates a society where black patients should prefer black doctors (because whites are unconsciously killing them) and everyone else should avoid black doctors if hired under DEI (Didn’t Earn It).

The imagined and almost hysterical importance ascribed to unconscious racism [which is unquantifiable and highly suspect] is surely a flimsy pretense for sacrificing your birthright as an American (black, white or any other color). I wouldn’t be bamboozled, cowed or silenced by this tulip bulb mania which is bound to collapse. They claim unconscious racism justifies collectivism and a “fundamental transformation” to the American experiment. But unconscious racism is a modern day witch-hunt: “Prove you are not a witch/racist.” People should be judged by their words and deeds only, not by mental telepathists who presume to read your mind- sheer absurdity.

Duke further promotes group collectivism through social justice. Why do we need “social” justice? Does justice need a modifier? Why not simply treat each individual with justice- period? Justice means giving each person what he or she deserves. But Duke wishes you to think collectively, not individually, therefore they talk of social justice for groups rather than of justice for individuals. Treating each individual justly will ensure social justice. All justice is social. A person on a deserted island can be neither just nor unjust.

Americans don’t want equity, we want equality. We don’t want social justice, we want justice. Socialists, collectivists, and Marxists aim for equity and social justice whose end is poverty and subjugation. Classical Liberalists, free-marketers, and individualists aim after equality and justice whose end is prosperity and freedom.

Resist the collectivists. Resist the socialists. Resist the cultural Marxists (with their oppressor/oppressed model feverishly fomented by Marx in his Communist Manifesto and parroted by Duke). Every time they say “equity,” you say “equality” twice as loud.

Don’t let them use the blighted, unscientific slander of “unconscious racism” to shoehorn socialism into society. Yes, it’s unscientific. When I asked Duke for the clinical/scientific data used for asserting “racism is a public health crisis,” they had none (Zero) despite earlier claims. They backtracked saying they relied on “social science” data. I have social science data Duke probably doesn’t want to hear. Of course there was no clinical data. It’s not a scientifically provable hypothesis but a failed political ideology.

Duke refused to answer because equity is based wholly on their belief in the unconscious racism of white people- a pretentious, dubious, insulting, and risible pretense for wealth redistribution. Here is the last question for Duke on my departure: Is Duke dedicated to the American proposition that all men are created equal, or to the socialist proposition that all groups should be made equal? You can’t serve two masters.

Peace and Goodwill-

Kendall Conger