Americans ‘should worry that a Harris-Walz administration would push similar racial discrimination nationwide,’ the scholar wrote
Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz has “brazenly violated the constitution” by pushing racial discrimination as governor of Minnesota, one scholar says.
In 2023, “Walz signed a law that explicitly requires [Minnesota’s Health Equity Advisory Leadership Council] to meet racial quotas,” Do No Harm Senior Fellow Mark Perry wrote in a recent op-ed.
The law specifically mandates that the HEAL Council include “representation” from African American, Asian American, Latina/o, American Indian, disability, and LGBTQ communities.
Meanwhile, the Constitution’s 14th Amendment states that “the government can’t discriminate by race or any other characteristic, because that necessarily involves unequal treatment,” Perry wrote.
The legislation is “unconstitutional” and ignores “insights and ideas from entire groups of people,” he wrote in the op-ed.
Perry told The College Fix in an email statement that “the racial discrimination practiced by the state of Minnesota and its HEAL Council is not only illegal, but it is guaranteed to contribute adversely to the quality of healthcare in Minnesota and nationally.”
By discriminating against certain groups, “the Council could overlook and exclude the most talented and highly qualified individuals.”
“The state of Minnesota and the HEAL Council can prioritize diversity or merit, but not both. By prioritizing racial diversity over merit, the HEAL Council is compromising its mission to advance health equity in the state of Minnesota,” he told The Fix.
The scholar, a retired economics professor from the University of Michigan Flint who now lives in Minnesota, also discussed his personal experience facing discrimination under Walz’s law.
As a fellow for “a health care nonprofit that advocates for excellent and equal medical care for every American, regardless of race,” Perry applied for one of the open positions on Minnesota’s HEAL Council.
“Turns out, I’m not who the council is looking for, based on the plain text of the law that Walz signed. I’m a straight, white, cisgendered male,” he wrote.
Further, Perry deemed Walz’s policy as “racism,” writing:
Our governor and Harris both have a history of promoting the ideology of health equity. Equity is profoundly different from equal treatment, and as we’ve seen in the administration of President Joe Biden and elsewhere, equity can actually mean providing different levels of care to patients of different races.
There’s another name for that: racism. And it’s as unconstitutional and immoral at the federal level as it is here in Minnesota. Too bad we have a governor-turned-vice presidential candidate who apparently sees nothing wrong with such discrimination — and even may think it’s right.
Additionally, the scholar questioned “what the HEAL Council says about Walz” and how he would govern as vice president.
“Is he really going to fight racial discrimination in a presidential administration?” Perry wrote.
Americans “should worry that a Harris-Walz administration would push similar racial discrimination nationwide,” he wrote.
Perry told The Fix that “If racial discrimination is advanced and implemented at the national level we’ll continue to see a dangerous departure from merit and accomplishment-based decision-making and outcomes to decisions based on superficial characteristics like race and sex.”
“Treating people differently and preferentially based on their race or sex, which are NOT accomplishments, is not only illegal, but it’s also unethical and immoral and erodes the quality of our institutions including the military, government, corporations, and our education system,” he stated.
In another case of racial discrimination in Minnesota under Walz, the University of St. Thomas decided to hire more “teachers of color” for science, technology, engineering and mathematics classes with the aid of $1.1 million in taxpayer dollars, The College Fix reported.
The Catholic university in St. Paul secured a federal grant with help from Democratic Senators Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith, along with Congresswoman Betty McCollum.
Perry is a civil rights activist, often filing federal complaints against university programs that exclude individuals on the basis of race or sex.
Last month, Perry shared with The Fix a copy of a recent complaint he filed with the Department of Education. Perry argues that the University of Connecticut’s “First-Year Women Werth Innovators cohort” illegally discriminates on the basis of sex and gender identity.
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