Pfizer resolves conservative challenge to diversity fellowship program

Group alleged bias toward white, Asian-American applicants

Pfizer expresses pride in its commitment to diversity

Jan 31 (Reuters) – Pfizer has resolved a lawsuit by a conservative group that alleged that a fellowship program that the drugmaker established to boost the pipeline of Black, Latino and Native American people in leadership positions at the company unlawfully discriminated against white and Asian-American applicants.

According to papers filed on Friday in Manhattan federal court, Pfizer will stop accepting new fellows and has already opened its program to applicants regardless of their race after being sued in 2022 by Do No Harm, an advocacy group opposed to diversity initiatives in medicine. The settlement came after the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Jan. 10 reversed a judge’s decision to dismiss the case and gave Do No Harm a new shot at establishing that it had the necessary legal standing to pursue the litigation.

“While Pfizer would like to quietly sweep their unlawful discrimination under the rug, their settlement acknowledges what we said all along: racially discriminatory programs are unlawful and will not go unchallenged,” Stanley Goldfarb, Do No Harm’s chair, said in a statement.

Pfizer in a statement said it was pleased Do No Harm had decided to voluntarily dismiss the case, which the company said had no merit.

The New York-based company changed the program’s criteria in February 2023 but continued to fight the case, and on Friday said it remained “proud of its commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.” Several other companies including Walmart and McDonald’s have recently backed away from diversity practices following pressure from conservative activists. An executive order signed by Republican President Donald Trump following his return to office sought to eradicate workforce DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) initiatives in the federal government and the private sector.

Virginia-based Do No Harm is a non-profit organization that has said it counts doctors, medical students and others as members and aims “to protect healthcare from radical, divisive and discriminatory ideologies.” Goldfarb is white.

The group sued Pfizer over the company’s Breakthrough Fellowship Program, which the company launched in 2021, arguing the program discriminated against white and Asian-American applicants in violation of federal anti-discrimination laws. The lawsuit was filed a month before the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in cases in which its 6-3 conservative majority would later in June 2023 declare unlawful race-conscious student admissions policies used by Harvard University and the University of North Carolina.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Will Dunham)