HHS moves forward with $22 million DEI program
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is allocating $22 million to make the nursing profession less populated by White nurses.
According to a report by Do No Harm, the Nursing Workforce Diversity (NWD) Program has doled out roughly $110 million to nursing education programs since 2019. Grantees must support “the recruitment, enrollment, retention, and graduation of students from disadvantaged backgrounds, including racial and ethnic minorities underrepresented among registered nurses.” Minorities are defined as American Indian, Alaska Native, Black or African American, Native Hawaiian, other Pacific Islanders, or Hispanic.
The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) will distribute $22,200,000 in roughly 40 grants this June to the NWD program, with the stated objective to “increase diversity and representation among registered nurses through evidence-based, culturally inclusive education environments.” The awards will be dispensed through HRSA’s Division of Nursing and Public Health.
The justification often given for these discriminatory programs is that diversity is associated with better health outcomes.
“The American Nurses Association (ANA) reported that a lack of diversity in healthcare significantly increases health disparities and contributes to poorer health outcomes and high mortality at disproportionate rates among socially and economically marginalized groups,” says the HRSA.
But there is no evidence for this claim, as Do No Harm points out.
“To be clear, the weight of the evidence indicates that diversity has no bearing on health outcomes,” the organization noted in its report. “In fact, a 2023 Do No Harm analysis found that four of five existing systematic reviews of racial concordance in medicine – in which patients are treated by healthcare professionals of the same race – showed no improvement in health outcomes; another systematic review earlier in 2025 found similar results.”
No DEI allowed
Immediately upon taking office, President Donald Trump ordered a purge of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices from the federal government. He signed an executive order titled “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEl Programs and Preferencing.”
“The Biden Administration forced illegal and immoral discrimination programs, going by the name ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ (DEI), into virtually all aspects of the Federal Government, in areas ranging from airline safety to the military,” reads the EO, noting that “nearly every Federal agency and entity submitted ‘Equity Action Plans’ to detail the ways that they have furthered DEIs infiltration of the Federal Government.”
“The public release of these plans demonstrated immense public waste and shameful discrimination. That ends today. Americans deserve a government committed to serving every person with equal dignity and respect, and to expending precious taxpayer resources only on making America great.”
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has been tasked with ending all government DEI programs and placing all employees of DEI offices on paid administrative leave. The OPM must purge DEI from all government contracts, training policies, and employment practices. It must remove anything related to “equity,” “environmental justice,” “diversity,” or “inclusion,” and investigate efforts to disguise DEI with coded or alternative language.
Trump also revoked an executive order from former President Lyndon B. Johnson that allowed for affirmative action hiring practices.
