Third Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated medical professor\u2019s case after judge threw out defamation claims<\/p>\n
A federal appeals court reinstated a medical professor\u2019s defamation and civil rights retaliation case against the University of Pittsburgh last week over an article he wrote criticizing affirmative action.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have devoted my career to caring for patients, training the next generation of physicians, and contributing to scholarship within my field. When I published this article, I was doing the same thing,\u201d Dr. Norman Wang said<\/a> in a statement after the ruling.\u00a0<\/p>\n In its July 7 opinion, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals decided that a federal judge erred in dismissing most of the doctor\u2019s claims last year. The ruling means his lawsuit can move forward.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The medical professor expressed relief at the court\u2019s decision, saying it \u201cstrongly supported my version of the events and rejected the narratives and excuses from the defendants.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo professor should be demoted for raising honest questions in a peer-reviewed academic journal,\u201d Wang said.<\/p>\n Wang is represented by the Center for Individual Rights, a legal organization that works to restore individual rights essential for a free and flourishing society. The center referred The College Fix to the professor\u2019s statement when contacted for comment this week.<\/p>\n The center described the Third Circuit ruling as a huge step for \u201cscholars who are punished for taking positions that oppose the race-preference and DEI orthodoxy within academia,\u201d according to its news release.<\/p>\n In 2020, Wang published an article in the Journal of American Heart Association arguing affirmative action harmed the medical academy, The Fix previously reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n Prior to his article, he worked in the university\u2019s medical center for nearly two decades. He was also the director for the cardiology fellowship program where he helped select and train fellows.<\/p>\n According to the appeals court ruling<\/a>, four months after his article was published, a doctor filed a complaint against Wang on July 29, 2020.<\/p>\n Within a week, Wang was fired from his director position, had his article retracted, and faced a social media pressure campaign where some of his colleagues labeled him as a racist, according to court documents. Wang was also banned from any role teaching fellows, residents, or medical students.\u00a0<\/p>\n Dr. Mark Gladwin, then chair of the medical school\u2019s Department of Medicine, also sent out a hospital-wide email denouncing his article, according to the case. Gladwin is now the dean for the University of Maryland\u2019s School of Medicine.<\/p>\n Wang sued<\/a> later that year, alleging that he was defamed and had his First Amendment rights violated. Three years later, Wang added civil rights retaliation claims, all of which a federal district court rejected last year, the University Times reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n