Editor of JAMA to Step Down Following Racist Incident
Dr. Howard Bauchner will leave his post after a colleague suggested “taking racism out of the conversation” on a journal podcast.
Dr. Howard Bauchner during a C-Span appearance in September. He will step down from JAMA at the end of June. Credit.C-Span.org
June 1, 2021, 2:13 p.m. ET
Following an outcry over comments about racism made by an editor at JAMA, the influential medical journal, the top editor, Dr. Howard Bauchner, will step down from his post effective June 30.
The move was announced on Tuesday by the American Medical Association, which oversees the journal. Dr. Bauchner, who had led JAMA since 2011, had been on administrative leave since March because of an ongoing investigation into comments made on the journal’s podcast.
Dear Colleagues, We wanted to take a moment to acknowledge the one-year anniversary of the death of George Floyd and the national and global reckoning.
May 25, 2021
Dear fellow members of the Columbia community:
The killing of George Floyd one year ago today rightly shocked everyone of good heart and conscience. It also ignited yet another Civil Rights Movement in American history, demanding that we come to terms with the racism that continues to pervade the society. Millions of people marched peacefully and expressed the views of millions more that everyone, and every institution, public and private, take stock of how far we have not come, rather than just focus on how far we have. This was a call for honest and open self-evaluation and rededicated purpose that all of good faith had to answer. We at Columbia have been trying to meet that call in that spirit.