A cardiologist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center argued to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that his former employer targeted him after he published an article opposing diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, Courthouse News Service reported March 2.
In March 2025, Norman Wang, MD, lost the lawsuit he had filed in 2020 against the University of Pittsburgh, UPMC, three other physicians and a physicians’ group, alleging that they discriminated against him after he published an article in the Journal of the American Heart Association in March 2020. In the lawsuit, he also claimed that his First Amendment rights had been violated.
In the article, Dr. Wang argued that the medical profession had not reached its goals of increasing the percentages of underrepresented races and ethnicities, especially in cardiology. His article also claimed that the field of cardiology was violating anti-discrimination laws in how it factored race into recruitment, admissions, hiring and promotion. But, according to the judge’s summary of the case, officials at the university and UPMC did not learn of the article’s existence until July 29, 2020.
Dr. Wang was removed from his position as the director of the clinical electrophysiological fellowship program at UPMC two days later, a position he had held since 2017. Samir Saba, MD, the chief of cardiology at UPMC and Kathryn Berlacher, MD, the director of the cardiovascular fellowship training program at UPMC, initiated the removal of Dr. Wang. According to the report, the physicians, among others, were critical of Dr. Wang’s article and the Journal for publishing it.
On Aug. 5, 2020, Dr. Saba, along with other colleagues, emailed the journal’s editor-in-chief to remove the article, according to the report. The article was retracted the next day. Additionally, the journal later published an article by fellow UPMC faculty member Marc Simon, MD, that criticized Dr. Wang’s article.
In December 2020, Dr. Wang sued in federal court alleging that Drs. Saba and Berlacher had restricted him from interacting with residents, fellows and medical students and that his reputation was damaged by their actions.
District Judge Marilyn Horan granted summary judgement for all defendants for all defendants. Robert Renner, Dr. Wang’s legal representative tried to revive a defamation claim against Dr. Simon. He argued that Dr. Simon caused his colleague material harm, which was received with mixed response by the court, according to the report.
Becker’s has reached out to UPMC and will update this article if more information becomes available.
