Johns Hopkins Hospital is under fire after its Office of Diversity, Inclusion and Health Equity sent out a letter labeling white people, Christians, men, English-speakers, and others as "privileged."
The statement was bought to public attention in a post by the @EndWokeness X account, which had gathered over 32 million views as of Friday.
In an email sending out the hospital's monthly diversity digest newsletter, "privilege" was chosen as the word of the month.
Johns Hopkins Hospital Chief Diversity Officer Sherita Hill Golden wrote: "Privilege is 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.
"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."
Golden released a new statement Thursday retracting the newsletter, saying its purpose was to inform and not harm.
"The newsletter included a definition of the word 'privilege' which, upon reflection, I deeply regret," Golden wrote. "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."
In a statement to Deseret News, Johns Hopkins Medicine confirmed the accuracy of both statements.
"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," a spokesperson said.
Elon Musk chimed in on X, writing, "This must end!"
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