Johns Hopkins Newsletter ‘Privilege List’ Naming Christians, English Speakers, Sparks Backlash

January 12, 2024

The Johns Hopkins Medicine’s Office of Diversity, Health Equity and Inclusion (DEI) has sparked backlash over a “privilege list” published in their monthly newsletter. The list, published by Chief Diversity Officer Dr. Sherita H. Golden, defined the word “privilege” as:

“…an unearned benefit 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.”

The newsletter, which was emailed directly to employees from the DEI Office, also named a number of social identity groups whose members exemplify privilege stating:

“In the United States, privilege is granted to people who have membership in one or more of these social identity groups: White people, able-bodied people, heterosexuals, cisgender people, males, Christians, middle or owning class people, middle-aged people, and English-speaking people.”

The message also stated:

“Privilege is characteristically invisible to people who have it. 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 are granted to people in the dominant groups whether they want those privileges or not, and regardless of their stated intent.”

The newsletter sparked outrage after it went viral, prompting Golden to retract the newsletter and to clarify that it was not intended to offend anyone. Golden apologized saying:

“The newsletter included a definition of the word ‘privilege’ which, upon reflection, I deeply regret. The intent of the newsletter is to inform and support an inclusive community at Hopkins, but the language of this definition clearly did not meet that goal. In fact, because it was overly simplistic and poorly worded, it had the opposite effect of being exclusionary and hurtful to members of our community,”

The accuracy of both messages was later confirmed in a statement to the Deseret News by Johns Hopkins Medicine which stated, in part:

“The January edition of the monthly newsletter from the Johns Hopkins Medicine Office of Diversity, Inclusion and Health Equity used language that contradicts the values of Johns Hopkins as an institution. Dr. Sherita Golden, Johns Hopkins Medicine’s Chief Diversity Officer, has sincerely acknowledged this mistake and retracted the language used in the message,”

Last year, Fox News reported that employees at Johns Hopkins Medicine were given a pronoun usage guide that included dozens of new pronouns, as part of recent inclusive ID policy.

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