Nowhere Left to Hide

Three officials at the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) are being called to account for retaliating against medical professor Norman Wang over his academic research. District Judge Marilyn J. Horan rejected motions to dismiss for Drs. Samir Saba, Kathryn Berlacher, and Mark Gladwin, who removed Dr. Wang from his position as the director of a fellowship operated by the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) in response to an academic paper challenging the overuse of race preferences in the medical profession.

     Wang’s article caught the attention of several Pitt officials in the summer of 2020, as leaders in prominent institutions nationwide were eager to cultivate a progressive image on social issues involving race. Some put out anodyne statements. Others took the disturbing step of removing employees who questioned any of the factual claims used to support progressive race policies — a trend that continues today.

     Pitt, it turns out, was among the latter group. At the end of July, Saba, Berlacher, and Gladwin agreed to remove Wang from his fellowship director post, and in the following days and weeks, they made perfectly clear what motivated their action. Gladwin sent out a university-wide e-mail decrying Wang’s article as “antithetical to the [school’s values].” Berlacher joined a hostile Twitter campaign to smear Wang’s reputation, declaring his piece “scientifically invalid and racist.”

     Saba, Berlacher, and Gladwin have argued that the First Amendment does not apply to their actions. They claim that they removed Wang in their roles with the UPMC, not Pitt. The UPMC claims to be a private company that is not subject to the First Amendment. Evidently, these officials hoped that Pitt’s complex institutional structure would shield them from accountability.

     As CIR alleged in our complaint, there is no meaningful way to separate Pitt and the UPMC in this case. As their names suggest, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center is closely affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh, and Wang’s fellowship program was jointly operated by both. Saba, Berlacher, and Gladwin all work for the University of Pittsburgh — a public university — and have authority over Dr. Wang both in his role at Pitt and the UPMC.

     Because Wang alleged that Saba, Berlacher, and Gladwin acted in their capacity as officials of the University of Pittsburgh, he successfully pled a violation of the First Amendment. This early success opens the door to proving that the complex, interlocking relationship between Pitt and the UPMC cannot be used as a smokescreen to shield Pitt officials such as Saba, Berlacher, and Gladwin from liability.

     The case now proceeds to discovery, where CIR attorneys will depose university personnel and request all relevant documents.