WASHINGTON, D.C. – America First Legal (AFL) has formally requested that Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita launch an investigation into illegal diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices at Indiana University Health (IU Health).
IU Health is Indiana’s largest healthcare system and serves as the primary teaching hospital for the publicly funded Indiana University School of Medicine. Although IU Health publicly claims a mission to “improve the health of our patients and community through innovation and excellence in care, education, research, and service,” its policies and actions tell a different story.
AFL’s investigation reveals that IU Health has embedded race- and sex-based discrimination into its hiring, contracting, and clinical practices under the banner of DEI.
AFL’s letter outlines the following violations and concerns:
- Discriminatory job posting: In April 2025, IU Health posted a job listing for a BIPOC doula stating that eligible candidates must be black, Indigenous, or a person of color, openly conditioning employment on racial identity.
- Race-based hiring and promotion: IU Health instituted a “workforce equity” program to implement racial quotas and build a workforce “representative of the Indiana marketplace, as noted in the 2020 census.” As part of this program, IU Health is “prioritizing workforce diversity at all levels,” with an explicit focus on “leadership roles.” It has launched a race-based hiring strategy, tracked publicly through demographic reports broken out by “Management,” “Leadership,” and “Provider” positions. IU Health has also admitted to “requiring diverse slates of candidates for senior leadership positions,” and “increasing opportunities for tuition reimbursement to promote career advancement” to improve “racial/ethnic representation.” These policies are not grounded in merit or equal opportunity, but rather, designed to engineer race-based outcomes in direct violation of federal and Indiana state law.
- Quotas in contracting: IU Health’s supplier diversity program requires that 25 percent of “major capital construction” contracts be awarded to diverse contractors and seeks to “promote inclusion” of minority- and women-owned businesses. To qualify, vendors must disclose the race, sex, and ethnicity of their ownership. DEI ideology in clinical care: Through its “Office of Health Equity Research and Engagement, IU Health conducts “diversity, equity, and inclusion-focused trainings,” such as “Mitigating Cognitive Bias,” “Cultural Humility,” and “Anti-racism” and created “Diversity Councils” to support “team members’ racial and ethnic experiences.” One DEI official described her role as ensuring that “inclusion and equity-building” shape “every single interaction” between team members and interactions with patients.
- Organ transplant eligibility: IU Health participates in the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) “Increasing Organ Transplant Access Model,” which uses race-based metrics to evaluate eligibility and ties funding to “equity” outcomes. AFL’s letter raises grave concerns about prioritizing transplant patients based on race rather than medical necessity.
“Indiana taxpayers are funding a healthcare system that openly violates the most basic civil rights protections,” said Megan Redshaw, counsel for America First Legal. “IU Health has embedded race, sex, and other identity preferences into hiring, contracting, and patient care — policies that would be unlawful in any other context. This isn’t equity. It is government-endorsed discrimination carried out under the false pretense of inclusion. The State of Indiana has a duty to its citizens to ensure that public institutions uphold the law.”
AFL remains committed to dismantling unlawful DEI frameworks across the medical industry and will continue leading the fight to ensure that every American is protected under the law.
Read the full letter here.
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Photo credit / Adobe stock: vitanovski
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