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Medical watchdog group Do No Harm asked IRS to consider revoking AMA Foundation’s tax-exempt status due to ‘racially discriminatory’ scholarships
The American Medical Association Foundation recently removed three allegedly “racially discriminatory” scholarships from its website after a medical watchdog organization questioned the awards in a complaint to the IRS earlier this month.
The complaint, filed by Do No Harm, centers around the foundation’s Physicians of Tomorrow Scholarship program, which offers awards of up to $10,000 to third-year medical students.
Do No Harm, which works to keep identity politics out of the medical field, asked the IRS to consider revoking the foundation’s tax-exempt status. Its complaint argues that three Physicians of Tomorrow Scholarships “explicitly discriminate based on race and violate established public policy and civil rights laws forbidding racial discrimination.”
“Race‑exclusive scholarships further erode trust by signaling that opportunities hinge on factors other than merit, and they stigmatize recipients by implying their achievements are owed to preference instead of capability,” Do No Harm Chief Medical Officer Dr. Kurt Miceli told The College Fix.
“A medical workforce grounded in excellence and capable of delivering the very best for patients is built by awarding scholarships and opportunities based on merit, not race or ethnicity,” Miceli said in an email Thursday.
Since the complaint was filed April 7, the three scholarships were removed from American Medical Association’s website, The Washington Times first reported on Saturday.
Web archives of the page suggest the scholarships were removed on or around April 17. The three scholarships still appeared on a March 10 archived version of the page.
The College Fix contacted the American Medical Association’s media relations office twice for comment over the past several weeks, asking about the complaint and the scholarships, but it did not respond. It also did not respond to follow up requests Tuesday through its online media request form and a phone message asking about the removal of the three scholarships from its website.
The AMA Foundation describes its Physicians of Tomorrow program as a “flagship” initiative “designed to support and elevate the next generation of physician leaders” by offering tuition assistance and national recognition through its scholarships.
The website currently lists 14. However, three others at the center of the complaint are no longer listed.
One of them, the Dr. Richard Allen Williams & Genita Evangelista Johnson/Association of Black Cardiologists Scholarship, offers $5,000 to “African American/Black” students who want to become cardiologists, according to Do No Harm’s complaint.
Another, the Underrepresented in Medicine Scholarship, gives $10,000 to medical students who are “African American/Black, Latine/Hispanic or Indigenous (American Indian, Native Hawaiian, or Alaska Native).”
The third is the Patricia L. Austin Family Physicians of Tomorrow Scholarship, which offers $10,000 to white medical students “of Eastern European descent,” according to the complaint.
Do No Harm’s complaint cites several U.S. Supreme Court rulings and a Treasury regulation regarding tax-exempt charities, stating that “the presence of a single unlawful policy or purpose under §501(c)(3) renders the entire organization ineligible for tax-exempt status.”
The complaint also states that “‘Racially discriminatory’ institutions ‘cannot be viewed as conferring a public benefit within the ‘charitable’ concept’ of the common law …”
“An investigation is warranted because the AMA Foundation is engaged in invidious racial discrimination that violates established public policy and thus renders it ineligible for tax-exempt status,” it states.
An IRS spokesperson declined to comment when contacted via email earlier this month asking about Do No Harm’s complaint and investigation request.
Speaking with The Fix last week, Miceli with Do No Harm linked the scholarships to “racial concordance,” the questionable idea that patients of the same race as their medical providers receive better care.
“The idea that medicine requires racial concordance, and that achieving it necessitates racial discrimination in medical education, is both wrong and unfounded,” Miceli said.
“Multiple systematic reviews have shown no evidence that outcomes improve when patients see physicians of the same race. What patients want is competent, high‑quality care, regardless of a doctor’s race or ethnicity,” he told The Fix.
Editor’s note: Assistant editor Micaiah Bilger contributed to this report.
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