'Red state privilege': MD Anderson’s quiet LGBTQ+ push in Texas



One of the world's premier cancer research hospitals, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, is hiding behind so-called "red state privilege," leaving the public in the dark about its ongoing support for LGBTQ issues.

Information and documents obtained by Blaze News from a whistleblower inside the hospital demonstrate MD Anderson's continuing LGBTQ-focused research and groups, even as its public-facing website appears to keep such promotion a secret. The whistleblower spoke with Blaze News on the condition of anonymity.

'It's good to be in a red state these days'

MD Anderson, a nonprofit that nevertheless receives some state funding as part of the University of Texas System, may keep its public support for LGBTQ issues rather muted with President Donald Trump back in the Oval Office, but its president, Dr. Peter Pisters, appears to believe the hospital can still participate in woke activism behind the scenes on account of its "red state privilege."

The whistleblower told Blaze News that it is "common knowledge" that Pisters, like other MD Anderson officials, is a "true believer" in woke causes and regularly discusses the hospital's "red state privilege" with top hospital executives, even though "he doesn't speak freely like that to the faculty."

By "red state privilege," Pisters generally means that MD Anderson can maintain most lines of federal funding and avoid serious scrutiny from the Trump administration about its woke policies and research interests because the state of Texas is generally perceived to be conservative, the whistleblower explained.

'The longer they get away with it, the more this continues.'

According to minutes from the Strategy Leaders Forum on June 6, Dr. Pisters assured forum attendees that the Trump administration "is not looking at MD Anderson since we are afforded red state privilege, as opposed to our colleagues at Harvard."

RELATED: Trump admin drops charges against whistleblower who exposed transgender operations at Children's Hospital in Texas

Screenshot given to Blaze News

Dr. David Vining, a professor of diagnostic radiology and the medical director of the Image Processing and Visualization laboratory, recalled Pisters making a similar remark during a "coffee talk" conversation back in early April.

"We will not know the repercussions of what's happening in DC until cuts come our way," Vining wrote in an email. "The potential loss in revenue could be staggering.

"He mentioned that they are working behind the scenes to lobby for the institution," Vining continued, seemingly referring to Pisters, "and that it's good to be in a red state these days."

The hospital did not respond to Blaze News' questions regarding Pisters or "red state privilege."

RELATED: Exposed: Harvard's elite law journal accused of discriminating against white men

Screenshot given to Blaze News

Notably, the Trump administration has targeted medical schools such as Harvard that have allegedly engaged in anti-white discrimination and other institutions of higher education that have seemingly stoked the flames of anti-Americanism on their campuses. Trump has also issued an executive order prohibiting the "chemical and surgical mutilation" of children related to so-called "gender affirming care."

"Anderson is the crown jewel of the UT System. They exceed financial performance of every other UT institution by hundreds of millions of dollars. So nothing is done to upset the apple cart. And I would actually argue that they use that wealth to get whatever it is that they want," the whistleblower explained.

'Walk with MD Anderson colleagues in Houston's iconic Pride Parade.'

"They really are a paper tiger," the whistleblower added, referring to MD Anderson executives like Pisters. "... They just rely on the backing of the state to cover up whatever mistakes they've made. And that really is the heart of it.

"The longer they get away with it, the more this continues."

Inside MD Anderson

While corporate and municipal support for Pride Month was down considerably in 2025 in comparison with recent years, Pride Month 2025 celebrations were apparently in full swing at Inside MD Anderson, the hospital's internally facing online board.

"This year, MD Anderson's LGBTQ+ Employee Network has several opportunities for employees to participate in Pride Month both virtually and in-person. All employees are invited to participate," said one 2025 post reviewed by Blaze News.

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Screenshot given to Blaze News

That Inside MD Anderson page, which also included an image of a transgender Pride flag, went on to list seven Pride-related events, culminating in the 2025 Pride Houston 365 LGBT+ Pride Celebration: Festival and Parade. "Walk with MD Anderson colleagues in Houston's iconic Pride Parade," an attending message said.

Screenshot given to Blaze News

According to another photo from Inside MD Anderson, seen here, the LGBTQ+ Employee Network at the hospital is a lively, active group that wore matching green T-shirts, proudly waved the rainbow flag, and hoisted an MD Anderson balloon adorned with rainbow trim during a recent Pride parade. The whistleblower claimed that the photo was from the 2025 parade, but Blaze News could not independently verify that claim.

Blaze News did review another photo at Inside MD Anderson dated 2022 in which parade participants from the hospital's LGBTQ+ network wore matching blue or purple T-shirts.

A post on the hospital's official Instagram account further claimed that MD Anderson sponsored the 2024 Pride parade. As of Wednesday, that post remains live.

'One of the most underreported stories in American politics is that the so-called Republican Texas government fully supports, funds, promotes, and forces taxpayers to subsidize DEI and transgender ideology.'

The LGBTQ+ Employee Network appears to be one of only a handful of organized intra-hospital staffing networks at MD Anderson. An apparently outdated webpage — available via internet search but not at the hospital website — about the similarly named LGBTQ+ Network at MD Anderson claims the group works to:

  • "ensure that sexual orientation and gender identity are not barriers to full participation in the professional and academic workplace,"
  • "present recommendations for increasing awareness and tolerance of LGBTQ+ issues," and
  • "foster a sense of community for LGBTQ+ employees."

The outdated webpage likewise promotes the 2019 and 2022 Pride parades in Houston.

Blaze News reached out to an email address for the LGBTQ+ Employee Network that, as of last week, was still available at Inside MD Anderson. We did not receive a response.

MD Anderson did provide a statement about the network, telling Blaze News, "The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center has multiple employee networks, including an LGBT network, to provide opportunities for employees to feel connected with their colleagues. Participation in each network is voluntary and open to all employees regardless of whether they personally identify as a member of that group.

"Employee networks are for internal engagement and therefore are not referenced on our public-facing website," the hospital reiterated.

The hospital did not respond to a question about whether staff members in heterosexual relationships and traditional families enjoy similar support services. The hospital also did not clarify whether it provides any funding to the LGBT network.

Out in the open

While LGBTQ+-oriented photos and events are readily promoted at Inside MD Anderson, the public-facing website for the hospital is relatively quiet about LGBTQ-related issues. The "About MD Anderson" website page makes no overt reference to woke-related topics except to list "teamwork and inclusion" among its "core values."

A search of "pride parade" at the website yields only two results, both of them from 2019.

'This grant was canceled in March 2025 as part of the administration’s broader effort to remove gender ideology from federal programs and ensure that public health initiatives remain grounded in evidence-based science.'

In fact, most of its LGBTQ-related materials are years old. For example, a hospital website article from January 2023 cited Dr. Benjamin Schrank, a medical doctor as well as an assistant professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology, who co-founded the Sexual and Gender Minority Cancer Care & Research Committee at MD Anderson.

Schrank indicated at the time that LGBTQ+ patients had unique treatment needs because of their fears of substandard care or maltreatment, presumably from bigoted or insensitive medical staff.

"Ultimately, we want all patients to know MD Anderson is a safe place to seek care, and we want to give our patients the resources, support, and dignity they deserve," Schrank said, according to the article, which likewise mentioned Schrank's "husband."

Schrank did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

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Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

According to records from the Department of Health and Human Services, MD Anderson has also collected more than $1 million in federal grants for "sexual and gender minority cancer ... research and education" since 2019.

However, in keeping with Trump's promise to Make America Healthy Again and to end "gender ideology extremism," his second administration seems to have cut this line of so-called SGM research funding for MD Anderson.

In a statement to Blaze News, the Department of Health and Human Services said: "This grant was canceled in March 2025 as part of the administration’s broader effort to remove gender ideology from federal programs and ensure that public health initiatives remain grounded in evidence-based science and the best interests of all Americans.

"HHS remains fully committed to advancing rigorous, high-quality cancer research."

MD Anderson did not clarify to Blaze News whether its Sexual and Gender Minority Cancer Care & Research Committee still exists or whether the hospital is still receiving any federal grant money for SGM-related research. It also did not confirm whether it recognizes any juvenile patients as "trans" or SGM.

Instead, the hospital said only that "the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center is committed to providing high-quality and safe care to cancer patients" and that it "complies with state and federal laws, including Texas Education Code § 51.3525."

That particular statute regulates institutions of higher education and strictly forbids them to establish policies or infrastructure related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Failure to comply can result in the loss of state funding.

Earlier this year, state Rep. Brian Harrison (R-Midlothian) introduced the Defunding Indoctrination in Education Act, which seeks to ban institutions of higher education in Texas from "offering programs or courses in LGBTQ or DEI studies." Harrison then refiled it during the special legislative session that began earlier this month, though Gov. Greg Abbott (R) must first add it to the agenda before the legislature can consider it.

Harrison told Blaze News that the ongoing shadowy LGBTQ push at MD Anderson would likely qualify as the kind of propaganda the DIE Act is trying to prevent. "I have no problem believing it's happening [at MD Anderson] because I'm seeing it happen all over the place with DEI or transgender ideology, people just changing the names of it and continuing to fund it at taxpayer expense," he said, characterizing such deception as "taxpayer abuse."

Though Harrison stopped short of agreeing that woke activists in Texas enjoy "red state privilege," he did tell Blaze News that for years Texas has "just been simply coasting on [its] reputation" of conservative values and limited government, a reputation he called a "myth."

"One of the most underreported stories in American politics is that the so-called Republican Texas government fully supports, funds, promotes, and forces taxpayers to subsidize DEI and transgender ideology," he claimed.

Abbott's office did not respond to Blaze News' question about adding the DIE Act to the special session agenda.

A 'very liberal' hospital

MD Anderson annually receives more than $100 million from the National Institutes of Health at the Department of Health and Human Services, so the recent cessation of the "sexual and gender minority cancer ... research and education" grant, which brought in less than $300,000 a year, should not have a major impact on the important research and treatment that the hospital conducts in the fight against cancer.

But the whistleblower indicated to Blaze News that leaders at MD Anderson are generally "very liberal" and push leftist politics, including those regarding LGBTQ, at the hospital.

For instance, the whistleblower revealed that the hospital's internal email system includes a group called the SURG Gender Inclusiveness Committee, though it's unclear whether the committee has ever met or engaged in any meaningful advocacy at the hospital. The whistleblower confirmed to Blaze News that "SURG" is short for "surgery."

RELATED: Trump deep-sixed DEI — but is it undead at major federal contractors like Lockheed Martin?

Screenshot given to Blaze News

The hospital has also recently promoted ongoing "sexual and gender minority"-based cancer research. As recently as last September, the hospital offered a "Sexual and Gender Minorities in Cancer Research" professional development event.

Shine Chang, the leader of and contact for the recently canceled SGM grant project at the NIH, was listed as a "co-activity director" for the event.

RELATED: Another white flag! Child sex-change regime continues to collapse under weight of Trump enforcement

Screenshot of MD Anderson website

According to her biographical information on the MD Anderson website, Chang, a member of the Department of Health Disparities Research faculty, is deeply invested in woke medicine. Her research interests include:

  • establishing an "LGBTQIA+ cancer research" workforce,
  • examining "systemic bias and systems thinking in health science,"
  • understanding the role that "financial toxicity" and other factors play in cancer outcomes,
  • studying "cancer disparities across multiple demographic factors," and
  • "developing culturally and geographically specific cancer prevention curricula."

'Spearheading blood or stem cell drives that invite and welcome LGBTQ peoples to participate as donors.'

Yet another hospital researcher, hematologist Warren Fingrut, sent a blast email to the Graduate Medical Education program in May 2025, less than three months ago, seeking prospective trainees for "projects to engage LGBTQ peoples to healthcare." Fingrut even expressed interest in "spearheading blood or stem cell drives that invite and welcome LGBTQ peoples to participate as donors."

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Screenshot given to Blaze News

Fingrut and Chang did not respond to requests for comment. The hospital also did not respond to questions about transgenderism and whether men can become women or vice versa.

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Exposed: Harvard's elite law journal accused of discriminating against white men



For years, many have suspected that Harvard, America's oldest and most revered educational institution, has artificially tampered with the racial and gender makeup of its student body by denying admission to highly qualified white and Asian applicants in favor of members of other racial groups, even those with less impressive skills, test scores, and resumes.

Those suspicions were confirmed in 2023 when the Supreme Court determined that Harvard College and the University of North Carolina had violated the Constitution and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by discriminating against Asian-American applicants in their undergraduate admission processes. The decision effectively ended affirmative action admissions at the college level altogether.

Now it appears that the Harvard Law Review, perhaps the most prestigious legal journal in the country, has likewise repeatedly considered race, gender, and other personal characteristics when evaluating submissions and editorial applicants, according to a series of damning reports from the Washington Free Beacon.

'A spoils system in which the race of the legal scholar is as, if not more, important than the merit of the submission.'

When President Donald Trump retook office in January, his administration immediately picked up where the courts left off, investigating Harvard for multiple questionable practices, including alleged "race-based discrimination" at Harvard University and the Harvard Law Review.

"Harvard Law Review’s article selection process appears to pick winners and losers on the basis of race, employing a spoils system in which the race of the legal scholar is as, if not more, important than the merit of the submission," acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor said in a statement.

RELATED: Asian-American who scored 1590 out of 1600 on SAT, got 4.65 GPA says he applied to Harvard, Princeton, 4 other elite colleges — and they all rejected him

Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

A flawed system

The Harvard Law Review is technically an independent nonprofit that is separate from the esteemed college, university, and law school, a point often reiterated in news reports about the federal investigations into alleged discrimination. However, Harvard Law Review trades on the vaunted Harvard reputation and operates in a building located on the Harvard campus.

HLR also hires only second- and third-year Harvard Law students to serve as editors. A student-run editorial staff at a journal like HLR means that some of the most accomplished legal scholars in the world humble themselves by submitting their thoughtful legal analysis and argumentation to amateurs for approval.

Few of them succeed.

Because of its prestige, HLR and other journals like it publish just a tiny fraction of the thousands of submissions they receive. Thus, HLR can — and should — subject these submissions to a rigorous vetting process.

'The author cited 20 men by name,' one editor complained, but only '9 women and 1 non-binary scholar.'

Unfortunately, HLR student editors appear more concerned with giving members of "underrepresented groups" a platform than with publishing sound scholarship, even though a recently published HLR fact sheet insists "the Review does not consider race, ethnicity, gender, or any other protected characteristic as a basis for recommending or selecting a piece for publication."

Back on April 25, the Free Beacon revealed that it had read and analyzed internal Harvard Law Review documents that implicated the journal in what reporter Aaron Sibarium described as "pervasive race discrimination."

Sibarium, as they say, brought the receipts. According to his reports and the documents linked to them, HLR has:

  • encouraged prospective student editors to provide an expository statement in their applications that "will not be evaluated for quality of writing or editing" but will supposedly provide a "holistic" picture of the ways their personal "attributes or experiences" might enhance their contributions at HLR;
  • passed a resolution in 2021 making "the inclusion of qualified editors from underrepresented groups" its "first priority";
  • selected minority women almost exclusively since 2018 to write the foreword for its renowned Supreme Court issue; and
  • invited authors to provide their race and gender when submitting work for consideration — and included "trans"-identifying and "gender nonconforming" options in the drop-down menu.

RELATED: Why Trump’s war with Harvard hits closer to home than you think

Screenshot of HLR website

According to a 2023 HLR orientation presentation shared by the Free Beacon — a presentation that lists "diversity, equity, and inclusion" first on a slide about "living our values" — HLR receives about 3,000 submissions, presumably on an annual basis. Articles editors then use what Sibarium called a "race-conscious rubric" to drain that pool of submissions quickly by giving them a basic read and then assigning them a number between 1 and 5, with 1 being the lowest score and 5 being the highest.

Multiple drafts of the screening rubric shared by the Free Beacon highlight "diversity" — including "author diversity" and "author experience" — as a "plus" that might help HLR achieve its "goals" for a particular volume. According to these drafts of the rubric, the "diversity" component is either present and the piece therefore merits a 5 or is not and the piece is not assessed a diversity score at all.

"We should consider expediting this piece" to the next round, the explanation on the draft rubric says of those given a 5 for diversity. Diversity is the only criterium listed on the rubric that prompts readers to consider "expediting" the piece to the next level.

RELATED: Justice Alito issues reminder of what SCOTUS must do, even if unpopular

Screenshot of draft of Volume 138 Screening Rubric

In its fact sheet, which may have been published after the initial Free Beacon report, HLR claims it "does not expedite the consideration of articles based on an author’s race, ethnicity, gender, or other protected characteristic." The fact sheet indicates HLR mainly expedites articles in cases in which "less-established professors" have received "exploding offers" from other journals.

In 2024, just 412 submissions to the Harvard Law Review made it to the second screening phase, meaning the "race-conscious rubric" and its "diversity" criterium helped editors filter out about 86% of the total submissions the journal received, according to the Free Beacon.

Those few hundred pieces are then given closer scrutiny in what is known as the "Rotopool" phase. At this point, the identity of the author is concealed, and a randomly assigned student editor reads the piece and summarizes and assesses it in a document known as a memo.

Each of the 50 or so pieces that advance to the third phase is then given to an articles editor, who then writes a more detailed memo called an M-Read. These pieces have since been unblinded, so articles editors know the identities of the authors as well as their race and gender.

The submissions that survive an M-Read continue on through at least three more rounds of evaluation before publication. Only 12 to 16 pieces of the original 3,000 ever make it to print, the orientation presentation noted.

RELATED: Kristi Noem’s bombshell letter hits Harvard where it hurts

Photo by Spencer Grant/GHI/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

In more than 500 HLR documents from 2024 and 2025, including memos from different phases, the Free Beacon discovered the following:

  • "The author cited 20 men by name," one editor complained, but only "9 women and 1 non-binary scholar."
  • "Despite occasional references to the 'cisgendered' and 'heterosexual' power-brokers and power structures that dominate in our contemporary era … the article advances a binaristic conception of gender that does not reflect contemporary understandings of gender diversity," said another editor about an article described as a "feminist analysis of antitrust law." "The DEI values advanced by the piece are limited," the editor also lamented.
  • "This author is not from an underrepresented background," yet another editor noted in the "negatives" section of an M-Read memo.
  • One editor bemoaned that an author cited mainly "male scholars who do not appear to be from underrepresented groups" but who do represent one of the top 14 law schools in the country, abbreviated throughout the memos as "T14."
  • A piece by an Asian-American male scholar from Yale that made it all the way to an M-Read was ultimately cut, with one editor suggesting at a meeting about his submission, "We have too many Yale JDs and not enough Black and Latino/Latina authors," according to the meeting minutes.

While terms referring to whites and males were apparently used often as pejoratives at HLR, other racial and gender identifiers and indicators were considered bonuses in some cases. For instance, one editor made sure to mention that publishing a particular author would provide "the opportunity to elevate a female scholar from a non-T14 school earlier in her career."

One editor effused that an author cited "predominantly Black singers, rappers, and members of Twitter," while another editor — whose personal writing style seems to involve the overuse of exclamation points and the word extremely — gushed that a piece referred to "a Kendrick song in the Conclusion!"

Recommendations on a 2024 HLR spreadsheet regarding who should write the foreword for the Supreme Court issue — an especially selective process that includes members of the Women, Nonbinary, and Trans Committee as well as another diversity committee — revealed just how fixated editors were on so-called "underrepresented groups":

  • The candidacy of one female scholar was promoted because she would be "the first hijabi, Muslim woman to write the Foreword."
  • Another candidate would be "one of few Latino professors in this space."
  • Yet another would be "the first tenured female Asian American law professor in the US."

The Harvard Law Review did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News. HLR previously indicated that the Free Beacon had "selectively" taken some old internal documents out of context.

Legal journal faces legal fallout

Fallout from the revelations in the Harvard Law Review documents has been widespread. Just three days after the initial Free Beacon report was published on April 25, the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services announced a joint Title VI investigation into the alleged use of "race-based criteria ... in lieu of merit-based standards" at both Harvard University and the Harvard Law Review.

The DOJ launched another probe into Harvard for alleged race-based discrimination just a few weeks later. The multifront federal investigations prompted an order for the organizations to retain and preserve their documents.

HLR then apparently retaliated against Daniel Wasserman, a recent HLR editor and Harvard Law School graduate who allegedly leaked the internal documents to the Free Beacon, has since cooperated with the feds in the investigation, and now works in the White House under deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.

The journal reportedly demanded that Wasserman force all parties with whom he allegedly shared the documents to "delete or return" them. Days later, HLR apparently issued Wasserman a "formal reprimand."

"This Formal Reprimand informs you that your actions violate Law Review policies and do not reflect our community expectations," the HLR disciplinary committee wrote on May 22, according to the Free Beacon, which reviewed emails about the matter. "Continued violations may give rise to additional disciplinary proceedings."

Elite institutions like Harvard have been able to get away with 'objectively un-American and discriminatory behaviors' for years because those in power have supported certain forms of race-based discrimination — until Trump.

The reprimand was rescinded just five days later, after allegations that HLR had violated federal protections for whistleblowers. HLR claimed it was not aware at the time it was issued that Wasserman was working with the government.

Former DOJ civil rights division official Jason Torchinsky likened HLR's apparently punitive efforts against Wasserman to witness intimidation.

"What do they call it when a criminal tries to intimidate the witness?" Torchinsky said, according to the Free Beacon. "If you know someone is a witness in a federal investigation, and you try to intimidate them into stopping cooperation with the government, that in itself is its own offense."

Wasserman declined a request for comment from the New York Times.

In response to a request for comment, the Department of Education directed Blaze News to the press release about the investigation. Health and Human Services did not respond to a request for comment.

RELATED: Blaze News original: Obama, Biden set stage for Trump's derailing of Harvard's gravy train

Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Alexander "Shabbos" Kestenbaum, who graduated from Harvard with a master's degree in religion in 2024, filed a lawsuit against Harvard in the wake of the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, and the ensuing anti-Semitism that erupted on campus. The plaintiffs claimed the school allowed anti-Semitism to grow and intensify without consequence, resulting in "antisemitic discrimination and abuse."

Kestenbaum told Blaze News that elite institutions like Harvard have been able to get away with "objectively un-American and discriminatory behaviors" for years because those in power have supported certain forms of race-based discrimination — until Trump.

"Up until President Trump, we never had a government — we certainly never had a White House — who was interested in upholding the law and investigating these universities because in many instances, like with President Biden, they actually agreed with these policies that you should artificially elevate individuals based on their sexual orientation, based on their ethnic makeup, based on their racial identities," he explained.

This group of the "cultural elite," Kestenbaum continued, simply does not believe that anti-white, anti-male, or anti-Jewish discrimination is "wrong."

"They actually believe in what Harvard is doing."

Kestenbaum and other plaintiffs reached an undisclosed settlement with Harvard just a few weeks ago. The university did not respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

Others are likewise incensed by the apparent discrimination scandal at HLR.

Scott Yenor, a political science professor at Boise State University and the senior director of state coalitions at the Claremont Institute’s Center for the American Way of Life, told Blaze News: "The HLR practices violate the current understanding of the law, though they are the almost inevitable conclusion of the disparate-impact regime that the Trump admin and Sec. of Ed. Linda McMahon are seeking to get out of our so-called elite institutions."

Aaron Sibarium suggested in a statement to Blaze News that racial discrimination is just one problem at HLR and that the journal should reconsider its entire business model.

The documents from the law review don't just reveal a pattern of race-based decision-making. They illustrate the downsides of a system in which publication decisions are made by students who haven’t even passed the bar.

Whether they submit to the Harvard Law Review or some other journal, legal academics do not have the benefit of a jury of their peers. They are at the mercy of second- and third-year law students — many of them to the left of the average law professor — whose judgments of scholarly merit are saturated with ideological influence.

That’s not to say the peer-review process in other disciplines is apolitical. But it may provide a baseline of maturity and expertise that — if the documents from Harvard are any indication — many law students seem to lack.

Editor's note: Matthew Peterson, the editor in chief of Blaze News, is a Washington fellow for the Claremont Institute.

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Story of Iowa mom vs. Department of Health and Human Services might be the craziest thing you’ve ever heard



Emily Donlin is an Iowa mother who is under investigation by the Department of Health and Human Services because her infant’s umbilical cord tested positive for cocaine.

The only thing is Emily has never done cocaine in her entire life. In fact, she’s so holistic she doesn’t even take over-the-counter painkillers or vaccinate her children.

How on Earth did this happen?

Allie Beth Stuckey invites Emily on the show to share her most disturbing story.

Although Emily had a home birth, she took her son Paul into the hospital shortly after his arrival to ensure he was healthy, and fortunately, everything checked out perfectly — initially.

However, two weeks later, Emily’s family received a knock on their door from DHHS saying Paul had tested positive for cocaine.

Naturally, Emily was shocked and confused. She explained that she had never taken drugs and that this must be a mistake.

Their home was proven to have “no safety concerns.” The DHHS agent examined the children and confirmed they “[didn’t] have any behavioral indicators,” and she assured Emily “she didn't see any signs of drug use” in the home.

Yet despite their favorable evaluations, Emily’s family was forced to “undergo a 20-day investigation” that would include a “plan” that required her mother and husband to trade off supervising her when she was with her children.

“Looking back ... I would have done so many things differently,” Emily laments, but at the time, she “felt [she] didn't have any other choice” and “just accepted.”

Despite the upsetting situation, Emily and her family “had faith that the truth [would] come out” since they “had nothing to hide.”

Unfortunately, that’s not what happened at all.

Emily was forced to undergo a three-month hair test that tested for five different drugs, one of which was cocaine, and the test “came back negative” for all five drugs.

“We were like, ‘Okay we're good, right?’” Emily tells Allie.

Unfortunately, the answer was still no.

“We were then told that, well, actually the three-month hair test had nothing to do with the positive test and proving my innocence; it had everything to do with a second allegation, which we weren't told about ... that there were drugs in our home,” she explains.

Thus Emily’s negative hair test proved that there were no drugs in their home. But it did not disprove her son’s initial positive test at the hospital.

“About a week later, we received in the mail the report saying I am founded for a case of child abuse, and I am now on the child abuse registry,” Emily explains.

As a result, she was told she must fulfill certain “voluntary services” to avoid a court order, but the social worker refused to tell her what those services would be unless Emily agreed to them.

When Emily continued to press for information about what voluntary services she was agreeing to, the social worker said, “It sounds like you're declining services, [and] when you decline services, then you go to a China [case],” which stands for “Child in need of assistance” and moves the case into “the judicial system.”

Once the case escalated to a China case, “We received court appointed lawyers — both my husband and I” and “our children received a guardian ad litem,” which “is a lawyer that represents our children's best interest in the court,” says Emily.

Somehow, they still didn’t lose hope.

Before their court date, Emily submitted “25 pieces of evidence” proving her innocence, including “a 12-month hair test” she paid for herself that covered “the entirety of [her] pregnancy.”

But this negative test was still not enough to prove her innocence.

In the hearing, the court ordered “a retest on the original sample (the umbilical cord) and a DNA test on it” to ensure the sample actually belonged to Paul.

They also determined that Emily would undergo “voluntary services,” which they finally explained would involve “two monthly visits with DHHS,” “a random drug test,” as well as “a “substance abuse evaluation” and “treatment plan” should she test positive on the randomized drug test.

However, during their first mandatory DHHS visit, the social worker told Emily that their department was recommending she undergo the evaluation and treatment plan before the drug test was even conducted, denying the court’s original order.

They tried to “get the manuscript from the trial” to prove the judge’s original orders but were denied.

Having lost faith in the entire system, Emily decided to reject the evaluation and treatment plan, knowing she was innocent and in no need of intervention.

She completed the drug test, which was another three-month hair test, and like all her other tests, “it was negative,” and she fulfilled her obligation to meet with DHHS twice, thus checking all the required boxes laid out in the first court hearing.

A few days before the second hearing, Emily and her husband received DHHS’ filing, which included “eight recommendations,” one of which was to have “the custody of [their] children moved under the Department” (meaning foster care), even though at this point, Emily had taken “seven negative tests” and fulfilled all of the requirements outlined in the first hearing.

When she followed up with the hospital about the retesting of Paul’s umbilical cord, she was told she needed to contact that lab that conducted the test, but when she called the lab, they refused to work with her and told her she needed to go through the hospital.

She also found out that the “25 pieces of evidence” she submitted to the court hadn’t even been reviewed. In fact, the court claimed it “didn’t even know [she] did this 12-month hair test.”

At this point, Emily and her husband were left with literally nothing except prayers.

And clearly, it worked.

“They dismissed our case” in the second hearing, Emily says, and thankfully, the DHHS (probably because they had no real evidence) did not pursue a contested hearing.

While Emily getting to keep her children is excellent news, she is still currently on the list of registered child abusers.

To hear the full story and learn where Emily is at now, watch the video below.


Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?

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