A professor questioned affirmative action in medicine, then lost his fellowship directorship
A federal appeals court has revived a cardiologist's retaliation and defamation claims against the University of Pittsburgh and its hospital system.
The ruling, issued July 7, 2026 by the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, means a veteran cardiologist and medical-school professor can move forward with claims that his employers punished him for speaking out and defamed him. A lower court had thrown the case out. The appeals court vacated much of that.
It began with an academic article. In March 2020, the professor published a peer-reviewed paper in the Journal of the American Heart Association arguing that race-based affirmative action in medical training discriminates against some minority groups and may violate the law.
For months, it drew little notice. That changed in the summer of 2020. After complaints reached hospital and university leaders, events moved fast. Within two days, according to the court's account, his supervisor and a senior colleague stripped him of his role directing a cardiology fellowship program. Two days later, they took to social media. One post branded the article "scientifically invalid and racist." A department account accused him of "misquotes, false interpretations, and racist thinking." Soon after, the two barred him from teaching fellows, residents, and medical students, telling him any "educational environment in which you partake is...
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