New year, new policy: the University of Arizona (UArizona) began paying for gender reassignment surgeries for both employees and their children on Jan. 1.
UArizona will cover up to $10,000 for these procedures through a newly established Health Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA): an employer-funded, tax-free health benefit that reimburses employees. Both employees and their dependents are eligible for the HRA.
The HRA would also cover fertility treatments, but only up to $2,500.
UArizona announced the reimbursement plan in the week after Thanksgiving. The HRA administrator is Navia Benefit Solutions, and offered through enrollment in the Arizona Department of Administration’s High-Deductible Health Plan or Triple Choice Plan.
The university has supported transgenderism openly over the past few decades. In 2013, UArizona lifted up a transgender former professor, Susan Stryker, who established their Transgender Studies Initiative.
Stryker retired, but is a visiting professor for Yale University, distinguished chair for Mills College, and co-editor for a Duke University Press book series on gender. Buzzfeed named Stryker as one of 24 individuals who radically reformed public perception of transgenderism.
The UA's Susan Stryker has been listed as an American who has changed the way we think about transgender rights: http://t.co/ciVVsElHgw.
UArizona also offers a “Gender Affirming Treatment” through their student health insurance plan, a benefit which is also available at Arizona State University (ASU) and Northern Arizona University (NAU). UArizona offers insurance through UnitedHealthcare.
The university also issues room assignments based on students’ preferred room gender through “open housing rooms” within “Gender Inclusive Housing” groups on certain floors or in certain dorms. Preferred names and pronouns are permitted to be changed for class rosters, emails, and other non-legal uses.
The university allows individuals to use restrooms corresponding with their gender identity, as well as offering restrooms that allow both genders.
UArizona received over $327.6 million from the state general fund in the last fiscal year. Current tuition rates are set at over $13,200 for residents, and over $39,500 for non-residents.
The university has a 50 percent four-year and 68 percent six-year graduation rate.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
A prominent Jewish rights group falsely claimed that the University of Arizona (UArizona) professor shot and killed last October was targeted due to antisemitism. The Simon Wiesenthal Center named the UArizona slaying as one of last year’s top 10 worst antisemitic incidents.
The killer facing charges, 46-year-old Murad Dervish, disclosed that his motive for killing concerned perceived disrespect from the Department of Hydrology & Atmospheric Sciences run by the slain professor, Thomas Meixner. The professor had denied Dervish a teaching assistant position for this spring semester.
Belief that Dervish’s motive for killing was antisemitism arose from testimony by another professor. Although Meixner wasn’t Jewish, Dervish reportedly believed he was based on his research using an online background checker.
This detail and speculation of antisemitism was disclosed by another of Dervish’s intended targets that fateful day: Meixner wasn’t Dervish’s first or only target.
Dervish first sought out Eyad Atallah, who Dervish knew wasn’t Jewish. Atallah was aware of Dervish’s animosity toward him, telling the Arizona Daily Star that he bought a bulletproof vest to teach classes. Atallah said that Dervish sent antisemitic messages about Meixner, though both UArizona President Robert Robbins and Pima County Attorney Laura Conover said that filed complaints didn’t meet the threshold for pressing charges.
Here is one of the Simon Weisenthal Center's "Top Ten Worst Global Anti-Semitic Incidents" for 2022. A gunman is said to have killed a professor because he mistakenly thought the professor was Jewish
If these lists are so necessary, you have to wonder why they just make stuff up pic.twitter.com/462QuoNeJI
Dervish’s escalation from menacing language to killing may have also arisen from an eviction notice served the week prior to the killing. His former neighbors told reporters that they felt threatened by Dervish for over a year. Dervish attempted to fight his female neighbors, and would watch them come in and out of their house.
“First thing ever he said to both me and my other roommate, different times, was, ‘You won’t last long here,’” said one of the women.
Neighbors of the man whose accused of killing the University of Arizona professor said they’ve felt threatened by Murad Dervish for more than a year. https://t.co/vDTTLViTpbpic.twitter.com/XkBfcA7an0
Dervish’s father, Dolgun, said that his son struggled due to having Asperger’s Syndrome and later, alcoholism. Dervish went to prison on three separate occasions.
Dervish had attempted to kill in the past, but not because of antisemitic beliefs. He pulled a knife on a pizza man while at Penn State University. He later served a prison sentence for attempting to kill his own mother by strangling her with a scarf.
In 2011, Dervish was arrested and sentenced to prison for some undisclosed crime in California.
Dervish also had a restraining order filed against him in 2020 while he was a teaching assistant at San Diego State University. The complainant was a woman who claimed he harassed and stalked her, and even ignored the order against him. Prior to that, Dervish assaulted his father at his restaurant. Dervish reportedly smashed restaurant equipment with a crowbar, threw a plate at his father, and hit his father’s back.
Prosecutors haven’t characterized Dervish’s killing as a hate crime. He faces seven charges including first-degree murder, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, first-degree burglary, possession of a deadly weapon, and endangerment.
CAMPUS SHOOTING IN TUCSON
Yesterday, on the campus of the University of Arizona, professor Dr. Thomas Meixner was shot and killed.
The suspect, Murad Dervish, 46, one of Meixner’s former students, has been arrested and will be charged.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) awarded $7.3 million to the University of Arizona (UArizona) for a study on “long COVID.” Aiding this research will be the Arizona Department of Health Services and UArizona’s CoVHORT system: a data collection effort launched early in the pandemic that contains over 8,500 participants.
UArizona is one of multiple research facilities throughout the nation examining post-COVID-19 conditions. Temple University, the University of Indiana, and Comagine Health will also conduct studies. UArizona researchers will estimate post-COVID-19 complications based on health care record data, and track the conditions of at least 1,000 individuals over the next two years.
In addition to regular scientific researchers, UArizona included the interim assistant dean of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the multimillion-dollar study: Velia Leybas Nuno.
The remainder of the research team includes Sydney Pettygrove, associate research professor; Leslie Farland, assistant professor and BIO5 Institute member; Felina Cordova-Marks, assistant professor; Kacey Ernst, professor and program director of epidemiology; Elizabeth Jacobs, professor of epidemiology and biostatistics; Pamela Garcia-Filion, College of Medicine-Phoenix associate research professor; Vignesh Subbian, College of Engineering assistant professor and Center for Biomedical Informatics and Biostatistics associate director; and Vern Pilling, Center for Biomedical Informatics and Biostatistics director.
UArizona’s research arises from the Biden administration’s April announcement that it was accelerating research efforts to understand long COVID.
The CDC defines “long COVID,” also called “post-COVID conditions” (PCC), as a vague and varying array of symptoms that could last indefinitely and impact anyone who’s had any degree of COVID-19 infection — in some cases, even those who never tested positive for COVID.
Symptoms include, but aren’t limited to: fatigue, brain fog, labored breathing, headaches, dizziness, heart palpitations, chest pain, cough, joint or muscle pain, depression, anxiety, fever, sleep problems, pins-and-needles, diarrhea, stomach pain, rash, change in menstrual cycles, and change or loss of taste or smell. These symptoms may lead to damage of the lungs, heart, kidneys, neurological system, circulatory system, and mental health.
The CDC didn’t definitively state that unvaccinated individuals had a greater risk of long COVID than the vaccinated. No tests exist to diagnose long COVID.
Concurrent with the rise of “long COVID” is a rise in adverse reactions to the COVID-19 vaccine. Symptoms of the two ailments overlap consistently.
"Long post-COVID vaccination syndrome is a definite complication of anti-SARS-CoV-2 vaccinations and can severely impact the quality of life and lead to disability." https://t.co/P1WFlKIzFh
— Association of American Physicians & Surgeons (@AAPSonline) December 12, 2022
Last July, on the 31st anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Biden administration classified long COVID as a disability. The Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights and DOJ Civil Rights Division devised the long COVID disability guidance.
The ADA prevents discrimination based on disability. This includes additional time on tests for students, accommodations for customers who can’t stand for long periods of time in line, refueling assistance at a gas station for a disabled customer, and even service animal assistance for those who grow dizzy while standing for long periods of time.
The Biden administration also shared that it is looking to identify demographic patterns in long COVID victims in order to achieve equity, the health burdens and financial costs that the phenomenon incurs, and whether COVID vaccines do reduce long COVID.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
Last week, the Arizona Board of Regents (ABOR) approved over $2.4 million in salaries and bonuses for all three presidents of the state’s public universities — making them among the highest paid public employees in the state.
Arizona State University (ASU) President Michael Crow received a pay raise of over $38,500, bringing his base salary to over $809,800, as well as a $90,000 bonus. Crow also receives perks: housing, a vehicle allowance, and retirement contributions. ABOR extended his contract through June 2027.
Northern Arizona University (NAU) President José Luis Cruz Rivera received the largest pay raise of $61,800, bringing his base salary to $576,800, as well as a $75,000 bonus. ABOR extended his contract through June 2025.
University of Arizona (UArizona) President Robert Robbins received a pay raise of over $37,700, bringing his base salary to over $792,200. Robbins also received a $75,000 bonus. ABOR extended his contract through June 2025 as well.
The three presidents’ bonuses were contingent on the achievement of various at-risk goals.
Crow met all three at-risk goals: a strategy to address educational gaps in the state, a plan for the launch of at least one of the five Future Science and Technology Centers in the Fulton Schools of Engineering, and clarifying and documenting the expectations for relationships among ASU’s Teaching, Learning, and Knowledge Enterprises.
For Crow, an additional $150,000 in at-risk compensation goals were proposed for next year, each worth $50,000 if met: design and launch a premium brand for ASU online; develop and launch a plan to move the three core brands of the W.P. Carey School of Business, the Fulton Schools of Engineering, and the Barrett Honors College into three global brands; and design and launch a new Health Futures Strategy that includes a holistic approach around health sciences and launch preparations for the Public Health Technology School.
Crow also has five at-risk compensation goals through 2024 worth an additional $160,000. These goals will require Crow to demonstrate increased enrollment and student success in adaptive learning courses by offering over 15 courses, with an increase in overall course completion to over 80 percent; increase enrollment of Arizona students and number of graduates by over 10 percent; complete the design of the Global Futures Library with engagement of over 700 faculty members, as well as merge the three schools of the College of Global Futures; build and document enhanced regional collaboration in research; and demonstrate substantial expansion of ASU Digital Prep to at least 150 in-state schools, predominantly rural and underperforming schools.
Cruz Rivera also had three at-risk goals, which he met: a leadership team for NAU, restructured pricing and financial aid along with marketing and recruiting, and a set of goals and objectives to rebrand NAU.
For the upcoming year, Cruz Rivera has $135,000 in at-risk compensation goals aligned with the rebranding and restructuring efforts at NAU, each worth $45,000. Cruz Rivera must develop and implement a “New NAU System” to encompass in-person, online, and hybrid learning modalities, branch campuses, community college partnerships, and engagement with the state’s K-12 system. Cruz Rivera must also transform NAU Online, as well as increase enrollments and enhance career preparation opportunities.
Through 2024, Cruz Rivera is tasked with $120,000 in at-risk compensation goals, each worth $30,000. Cruz Rivera must expand the number of students from working-class families, increase overall graduation rates, and narrow completion gaps for working-class, first-generation, and minority groups; expand the Allied Health Programs and traditional NAU programs into Maricopa, Pima, and Yuma counties as well as distributed learning centers outside these three counties; and increase NAU profile, visibility, and programs for both Latino and Native American communities throughout the state and nationwide.
Robbins also met his three at-risk goals for this year: a new budget model that reduced college and department overhead costs by at least $10 million, a strategy to raise attainment in southern Arizona, and progress toward creating a Center for Advanced Immunology at the PBC.
In the coming year, Robbins faces $135,000 in at-risk compensation goals: secure at least $200 million in initial funding commitment from the state, local government, or private donors by next June for the Center for Advanced Molecular Immunotherapies; develop a plan to centralize responsibility and balance local authority in the university-wide administrative functional areas of Information Technology and Financial and Business Services by next June; and complete the transition of the UArizona Global Campus as an affiliated partner to its final stage under the full authority and oversight of UArizona by next June.
Then, Robbins faces $120,000 in at-risk compensation goals through the end of 2024: increasing retention by 85.5 percent; leveraging the Washington office of UArizona to increase federal research funding by 10 percent; progressing toward enhancing student experience and outcomes of the UArizona Global Campus; implementing an Information Technology security governance framework; and coordinating a collaborative relationship with ASU and NAU that raises the research potential of the UArizona College of Medicine Phoenix.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
One of the things I appreciated most during my 30 years practicing medicine in community hospital ERs was that race just didn’t matter very much. ERs were open to all, and there was one standard of care for all races and classes.
That was then. Today a wave of intolerant wokeness is sweeping over our healthcare system, insisting that medicine is shot through with systemic racism and that research and education efforts must be diverted from medical science to “dismantling white supremacy” in medicine.
The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) recently introduced their new Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) guidelines, which require that all medical students be taught to practice “allyship” when “witnessing injustice such as ‘microaggressions.’”
Residents are told to use their more advanced knowledge of intersectionality in making clinical decisions. (Just when you thought that race-based medical protocols were in our dark past.). Faculty are charged with teaching how “systems of power, privilege, and oppression inform policies and practices.”
Medical schools are enthusiastically falling in line. Examples abound. In 2021, the Anti-Racism Task Force at Columbia and the Diversity Task Force at Indiana University, joined by the University of Texas and other medical schools, endorsed the recommended AAMC “competencies.” “Health equity” concepts have become a prominent component of medical education.
The University of North Carolina is one of many schools that not only teach “social justice” and “anti-racism,” but use medical school applications to ensure compliance with principles of diversity in race, gender, and sexual orientation. Applicants who demonstrate reluctance toward the DEI agenda are weeded out in the application process. Oregon Health and Science University faculty are among those evaluated on their “DEI, anti-racism, and social justice core competencies” in performance appraisals.
The University of Arizona is on board too, with some additional twists. All faculty and staff are required to complete six hours of DEI training and complete one Implicit Association Test annually (in spite of its dubious relevance). Each of 17 clinical departments is required to hold three DEI credit-eligible events per year. All departments also have designated “diversity champions” to oversee compliance and round up laggards.
This is bad, very bad news for medical education, future doctors, and patients. Even before DEI was a thing, the quality of medical instruction had been in decline. Incoming students are less qualified and fail rates on board exams are climbing, partly because some students from groups that have been historically underserved are either allowed to skip the Medical College Admissions Test or are admitted with lower scores than those required from white and Asian applicants.
But instead of beefing up instruction in anatomy, physiology, and other disciplines that might come in handy when actually practicing medicine, medical schools are spending instructional time on such matters as white privilege and anti-racism, including Critical Race Theory (CRT).
CRT includes the notion that white people are inherently prejudiced against people of color and that there really is nothing they can do but acknowledge their defect, apologize, and grant compensating privileges to people of contrasting skin color, who by definition are incapable of bigotry. Dissenters from this new orthodoxy can be accused of “micro-aggressions” and “repressive practices” with ominous repercussions for their careers.
This intellectual intolerance also extends to those skeptical of “gender affirming care” for adolescents. This new practice provides permanent medical and surgical alterations to gender-confused school children for the rest of their lives so they can pretend to be the gender they choose when a teen. What could go wrong?
Several countries, including the U.K., Sweden, and France are now pulling back from relying on the judgments of impressionable adolescents for such drastic remediation, but dissenters in the U.S. are still punished.
Medical educators who teach students that racism and mutilation are okay when officially approved should humbly recall the history of their own profession. Modern medicine has been of immeasurable benefit to mankind. But when evidence-based science is ignored and authority replaces free inquiry, bad things happen.
Bleeding and purging, eugenics, thalidomide, lobotomies, and nonsterile wound probing are among the historical results. It is the duty of the medical profession to protect us from such horrors, not promote them.
Dr. Thomas Patterson, former Chairman of the Goldwater Institute, is a retired emergency physician. He served as an Arizona State senator for 10 years in the 1990s, and as Majority Leader from 93-96. He is the author of Arizona’s original charter schools bill.
