Maryland, My Maryland

Baltimore Fish Bowl, Johns Hopkins Medicine chief diversity officer steps down two months after backlash over ‘privilege’ email

Johns Hopkins Medicine’s vice president and chief diversity officer Dr. Sherita Golden has stepped down from her role, two months after receiving backlash for an email newsletter in which she explained the concept of privilege.

“She has been a valuable member of the Johns Hopkins Medicine leadership team, and, like many of you, we wanted her to stay in her role, but we respect her decision,” wrote Johns Hopkins Medicine CEO Dr. Theodore L. DeWeese and Johns Hopkins Health System President Kevin W. Sowers in an email to staff on Tuesday. Golden will continue her work as a professor of endocrinology and metabolism with Johns Hopkins Medicine.

JHM will convene a search committee and conduct a national search for the next head of the Office of Diversity, Inclusion and Health Equity, according to Tuesday’s announcement.

A better move would be to disband the Office of Diversity, Inclusion and Health Equity, and move it's staff into the janitorial department. But that won't happen. Yet.

In her Monthly Diversity Digest email in January, Golden defined privilege as “a set of unearned benefits given to people who are in a specific social group. Privilege operates on personal, interpersonal, cultural and institutional levels, and it provides advantages and favors to members of dominant groups at the expense of members of other groups.”

Golden listed social groups that have privilege, including white people, able-bodied people, heterosexuals, cisgender people, males, Christians, middle or owning class people, middle-aged people, English-speaking people.

“Privilege is characteristically invisible to people who have it,” Golden continued in her email. “People in dominant groups often believe they have earned the privileges they enjoy or that everyone could have access to these privileges if only they worked to earn them. In fact, privileges are unearned and granted to people in the dominant groups whether they want those privileges or not, and regardless of their stated intent.”

The email was shared by X account “End Wokeness,” and was hotly criticized, particularly among conservative social media users, including former President Donald Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. and X (formerly Twitter) owner Elon Musk.

Golden went on to retract her earlier definition of privilege. “The newsletter included a definition of the word privilege which, upon reflection, I deeply regret,” Golden wrote in a letter, according to the Daily Mail. “The newsletter intends to inform and support an inclusive community at Hopkins, but the language of this definition did not meet that goal.

I'm so sorry I got caught!