EXCLUSIVE: Seattle Children’s Hospital Renamed DEI Programs to Sidestep Trump, Employee Says
13th March 2025
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.