Thursday, March 3, 2005
The National Institutes of Health has been quietly overhauling several
of its
diversity-oriented grant programs, largely to avoid lawsuits accusing it or
its grantees of discriminating against white or Asian-American researchers.
The agency still operates some programs that award grants only to
members of
certain racial or ethnic minorities. But NIH officials said the agency
planned, in the long term, to open all the programs to applicants who have
disabilities or are deemed disadvantaged, regardless of their race.
"We have basically broadened the diversity tent to include a number of
other
groups," said Norka Ruiz Bravo, the NIH's deputy director for extramural
research.
NIH officials had declined to provide details about such programs or
discuss
specific changes being made to them until last month, after The Chronicle
obtained written descriptions of several of the programs through the
Freedom
of Information Act.
In subsequent interviews and e-mail exchanges, NIH officials said that
their
agency's steering committee decided to expand the eligibility criteria
of its
diversity-oriented programs when it met last June, and that changes in the
programs are now under way.
The agency announced new eligibility rules in November for one of its
largest
diversity programs, which provides colleges and other grant recipients with
supplemental funds to recruit minority scientists and support their
work. Ms.
Ruiz Bravo said the agency expects to make similar changes in the
eligibility
criteria of other programs as their current grant cycles expire and as the
NIH renews the programs and issues updated announcements regarding the
awards
and who can apply.
Ms. Ruiz Bravo said the agency had decided to let existing programs "run
their
natural course" because making midstream changes in them would have seemed
"like going back on something that we had already put out there."
"It is a more thoughtful or humane approach, rather than pulling the rug
out
from anyone who has applied for, or is applying for, one of these
programs,"
she said.
Debating the Cure
The changes being made in NIH minority programs are partly a response to
the
U.S. Supreme Court's June 2003 rulings in two lawsuits against the
University
of Michigan at Ann Arbor. In those decisions, which involved the admissions
policies of Michigan's law school and chief undergraduate program, the
court
held that colleges can consider applicants' race for the sake of fostering
diversity on campuses, but must treat such applicants as individuals and
avoid giving their race too much weight (The Chronicle, July 3, 2003).
Another major provider of federal grants to scientists on college campuses,
the National Science Foundation, had ceased to operate race-exclusive
programs back in 1998, in response to a lawsuit by a Clemson University
student that challenged the legality of an NSF research fellowship for
minority graduate students. The NSF chose to settle the suit after
concluding
that the fellowship program had been rendered legally impermissible by a
1995
Supreme Court decision, Adarand Constructors v. Pena, which held that
race-based policies must be "narrowly tailored" and serve a compelling
government interest (The Chronicle, July 3, 1998).
"The Michigan cases, as a practical matter, had no effect on our programs,"
Lawrence Rudolph, the NSF's general counsel, said.
The NIH continued to award grants based on race, but had appeared to be
reconsidering that practice in the months leading up to the Michigan
rulings,
as organizations critical of affirmative action mounted a campaign to rid
colleges of race-exclusive programs, and the Education Department's Office
for Civil Rights signaled that such programs were unlikely to pass muster
with its lawyers (The Chronicle, March 7, 2003).
When Indiana University's Cancer Center, in Indianapolis, was challenged
over
a minority summer-research program financed by the NIH, the agency
responded
by giving Indiana and other grantees the option of applying the term
"underrepresented minority" to subsets of the nation's white and
Asian-American population that produce relatively few cancer researchers,
such as those who are from low-income backgrounds or whose parents did not
complete college.
Colleges throughout the nation interpreted the Supreme Court's Michigan
rulings as leaving their race-exclusive programs vulnerable to legal
challenge, and responded by opening the programs to other groups, such as
students who were economically disadvantaged or had demonstrated a
commitment
to promoting diversity.
At the NIH, officials became caught up in a debate over how to change the
eligibility criteria for minority programs to shield them from legal
challenge, according to Clifton A. Poodry, director of the Minority
Opportunities in Research Division in the NIH's National Institute of
General
Medical Sciences. In an interview on Tuesday, Mr. Poodry said that some NIH
officials had wanted to shift the programs from serving members of minority
groups to serving those deemed "disadvantaged," but others, including
himself, felt that such an approach "was wrongheaded," partly because it
seemed to equate minority status with disadvantage and partly because
disadvantage is hard to define.
"It is a Pandora's box," Mr. Poodry said. "Are you disadvantaged if you
come
from a broken home? Are you disadvantaged because you come from the
suburbs,
where you have not been able to experience the richness of life that others
have?"
Given the charged nature of the debate and the threat of litigation over
the
programs, NIH officials were hesitant to talk publicly about the agency's
minority programs and the changes being contemplated, Mr. Poodry said.
Redefining Diversity
The change in the minority-research supplement program, announced in the
fall,
represents the compromise reached by NIH officials. The agency's steering
committee chose to merge that program with another that gives grant
recipients funds to recruit, and support the work of, researchers with
disabilities. In addition to those two groups, the new merged program
offers
grant recipients financial incentives to employ researchers "from
disadvantaged backgrounds."
Included in the program's "disadvantaged" category are researchers whose
family incomes fall below federal low-income thresholds, as well as
those who
come from environments, such as certain rural or inner-city communities,
that
can be shown to have recently and directly inhibited their efforts to
obtain
"the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to develop and
participate in
a research career."
The NIH's announcement of the program change notes that grant recipients
will
have a much easier time showing that recent disadvantage has affected a
high-school or undergraduate student than someone at the graduate-school
level or above.
Ms. Ruiz Bravo, the agency's deputy director for extramural research, said
that the NIH plans to use the supplement program's new three-pronged
diversity definition as a model in revising the eligibility criteria for
other minority programs.
In response to a Freedom of Information Act request asking for
information on
any NIH programs that "as of January 1, 2003, had eligibility requirements
pertaining to race or ethnicity," the NIH produced records of four, none of
which has yet undergone change. They were a National Heart, Lung, and Blood
Institute award for underrepresented minority faculty members; a National
Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke award for minority
scholars in
the neurosciences; a National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and
Kidney
Diseases grant program for investigators from underrepresented racial and
ethnic groups; and a program, jointly operated by several NIH institutes,
that provides financial support to minority doctoral candidates writing
dissertations on the social, legal, or ethical implications of genetics
research.
A subsequent search of the NIH Web site found descriptions of four other
programs that continue to have similar race-based eligibility criteria.
They
are a National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute short-term training
award for
minority students; an NIH award for new minority faculty members; and two
programs that provide minority students with funds to attend national
scientific meetings.
David R. Burgess, a professor of biology at Boston College who served on an
advisory committee to the NIH director until last fall, said he had found
that the directors of the agency's minority programs "feel challenged and
under increasing scrutiny," and he worries that the agency is losing
sight of
the need to promote racial diversity in the health-care work force and
to tend
to minority health problems.
Vanessa Northington Gamble, who is the director of Tuskegee University's
National Center for Bioethics and has extensively examined minority health
issues, said she is concerned that the changes being adopted by the NIH
will
erode minority gains in the health-care professions, and could lead members
of minority groups, people with disabilities, and the disadvantaged to
"feel
they are in competition with each other."
Stephen B. Thomas, director of the University of Pittsburgh's Center for
Minority Health, said such competition would be avoided if the NIH programs
received adequate funds. "I applaud the effort on the part of NIH to
open up
opportunities for all groups that are systematically discriminated against,
for whatever reason," he said.
