EXCLUSIVE: Seattle Children’s Hospital Renamed DEI Programs to Sidestep Trump, Employee Says

Seattle Children’s Hospital renamed its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs to circumvent President Donald Trump’s directives, a whistleblower tells The Daily Signal.

On Day One of his presidency, Trump signed an executive order to terminate “diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) discrimination in the federal workforce and in federal contracting and spending.” 

For Seattle Children’s Hospital to continue receiving hundreds of millions in federal funding for research, grants, and more, it was required to end to its DEI-focused programs.

But some of the slashes to DEI were in name only, according to a current employee, who asked to remain anonymous for job security. The hospital scrubbed some mentions of DEI from its website and changed the titles of DEI-personnel, but many of the programs remain.

The CEO of the children’s hospital, Dr. Jeff Sperring, told the organization at a town hall meeting on Feb. 26 that Seattle Children’s will be revamping its naming conventions in order to comply with the executive orders and not get targeted, according to the employee.

Employees live in fear of being accused of racism, sexism, or the like if they fail to adhere to the hospital’s strict standards of political correctness, the employee said.

“The DEI culture at Seattle Children’s Hospital is a culture of fear,” the employee said. “Employees are terrified of being accused of racism and religious discrimination, so there’s a toxic culture of fear, which really stifles free speech.”

The employee said that a survey has been given the past few years to the nursing staff that focuses entirely on race-based aggression and the resulting harm to patients and families. New staff are required to do diversity and so-called microaggression training.

The hospital’s “Inclusion Groups” for minorities on staff have been removed from the website, but have not dispersed, the employee said.

The hospital’s Center for Diversity and Health Equity’s website now yields a “Page not Found” result. The page previously said the center was “dedicated to reducing health disparities and improving the lives of all patients, families, research participants, and the community,” according to a WayBack Machine search.

Dr. Kurt Miceli, medical director at health care nonprofit watchdog Do No Harm, bemoaned Seattle Children’s Hospital’s focus on critical race theory.

“It’s unfortunate to see Seattle Children’s Hospital, an institution noted for holding racially segregated diversity trainings, decide to secretly push its DEI agenda,” Miceli told The Daily Signal. “As with all hospitals, Seattle Children’s should focus on providing the best care to patients instead of wasting resources on radical political priorities.”

Seattle Children’s former chief diversity officer, Alicia Tieder, is now vice president and chief health equity officer.

The hospital has ceased transgender surgeries for minors in compliance with the Trump administration, but children are still being prescribed irreversible and sterilizing cross-sex hormones.

The LinkedIn profile of Dr. Hannibal Person, former medical director for the Center for Diversity and Health Equity, now says he is a doctor at the Department of Pediatrics, University of Washington, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology. His profile contains no mention of his previous DEI-related work.

The hospital did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment.

Person’s speaking engagements during his role at the Center for Diversity and Health Equity included lectures titled “Why Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Matter in Pediatric GI” and “Using Science to Justify Racism: Understanding the Sordid History of Race-Based Pseudoscience.”

Most Seattle Children’s Hospital employees just want to focus on serving patients and their families, rather than waste time on DEI, the anonymous employee said.

The employee said most people want to focus on fulfilling the hospital’s mission statement: “We provide hope, care and cures to help every child live the healthiest and most fulfilling life possible.”

“For the last 10 years, we’ve been like laser-focused on proving that systemic racism exists,” the whistleblower said. “I am hoping that we can get back to the job of taking care of patients and families and children who are sick.”

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