If the governor appoints a medical expert to a university’s board, should he be blocked from learning about the university’s medical-school curriculum, and then removed by the state legislature for trying to learn about its medical curriculum?
No, obviously not. But that’s what Virginia’s Democratic legislature did. It removed from Old Dominion University’s Board of Visitors Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, a medical expert who was the former associate dean of curriculum at the University of Pennsylvania. He was worried that Old Dominion University’s curriculum might not be adequately teaching practical skills, as is the case at some other medical schools, where a “collapse in qualifications” occurred after courses came to “focus less on science than social justice.” The progressive Rector of Old Dominion University had blocked Dr. Goldfarb from even accessing the medical school curriculum and refused to let him meet with the dean of its medical school.
(Virginia’s Democratic legislature also is pushing various tax increases, one of which was previously vetoed by Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin.)
Dr. Goldfarb was one of 13 appointees of Governor Glenn Youngkin removed by Virginia’s legislature, which voted to reject their appointments, in an entirely partisan vote. That is an “unprecedented number in modern Virginia history.” Most of the rejected appointees, like Goldfarb, were conservatives who had demonstrated a willingness to speak out against progressive indoctrination and mind control in higher education (such as four members of George Mason University’s Board of Visitors, who Democrats removed after they objected to forcing all George Mason University students to take two classes focused on “diversity,” “equity”, and “inclusion”).
As the former publisher of Virginia Business explains, Governor Youngkin
appointed Goldfarb, the founder of the Do No Harm medical organization that combats wokery in the medical field, to the Board of Visitors of Old Dominion University in June. A former associate dean of curriculum of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, he brought impressive credentials to the task. He took his job as board member seriously. And he ran into a brick wall.
The story Goldfarb tells in the Wall Street Journal is shocking. Having observed similar treatment of activist board members at the University of Virginia, though, I don’t find it surprising. When it comes to conservative reformers, ODU’s leadership, like those of many other public Virginia universities, adheres to the mushroom school of management: Keep ’em in the dark, and feed ’em… you know what.
Goldfarb was naive enough to think that he might have something to offer ODU, which had recently absorbed the Eastern Virginia School of Medicine (EVMS) and had no institutional experience managing a medical school. He was particularly interested in understanding how the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion ideology had permeated the institution.
He never got the chance.
As Goldfarb tells the story, his first interaction with the board came in July, 2024, when he attended orientation. He asked Rector P. Murry Pitts, a Northam-era appointee, if he could examine the medical school curriculum. All he needed was an access code for the online portal. Pitts refused to provide it. It wasn’t the board’s responsibility “to run the university,” he wrote in an email. The board’s sole purpose was to govern the university.
“How can we govern if we don’t know what the various parts of the university are teaching?” Goldfarb asks in the WSJ column.
Goldfarb later asked to meet with Alfred Abuhamad, dean of the medical school. He wanted to hear about Abuhamad’s plans, he told PItts, to “gain a better insight into the institution.”
Pitts rebuffed him again. The request did not relate to his job of overseeing the “strategic direction” of the university. The rector did arrange for Goldfarb to meet with Brian Hemphill, ODU’s president, but Hemphill turned down Goldfarb’s request to meet with Abuhamad as well.
Goldfarb attended the December board intending to introduce a resolution asking for med school admissions data. He’d managed to connect with Abuhamad at a Christmas party, and the dean had told him that the school allowed different MCAT scores for different groups of students it had admitted. He didn’t elaborate, but Goldfarb was concerned that he was referring to differences between racial groups.
Goldfarb wanted to make sure ODU was holding the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling ending discrimination in admissions. Before acting, however, he privately told Pitts about his plan to ask for the statistics. The rector asked Goldfarb to hold off, which he did. But he never got the chance to introduce his resolution in April, as he planned. The General Assembly rejected his nomination in February.
“Tellingly, the Democrats who run the legislature didn’t fire every Youngkin appointee. They fired only a handful of us, including a colleague at Old Dominion who shared my concerns and a George Mason University board member whose main concern is fighting antisemitism,” he wrote.
“It’s hard not to conclude that I was fired for asking questions that academic elites and their Democratic allies don’t want answered. But whatever they may be hiding the truth will come to light,” Goldfarb continued. “I fear that Virginia’s universities are destined for a scandal like Harvard and Penn not long ago.”
