March 20, 2024
By David D. Begley
In early February, I delivered to Trev Alberts a book. In it is the following quote, “So be careful of the way you end things, and devote more to a successful exit than to a highly applauded entrance.” I guess he didn’t get to that part of the book.
Even though I’m a Creighton alum, I have a deep love for the state of Nebraska. The University of Nebraska system is very important to our state and it needs to be successful for Nebraska to improve and grow.
Leadership at the top is vital to success. Creighton has been blessed with great presidents: Fathers Reinert, Morrison, Schlegel and Hendrickson. These men had long tenures and the full support of their Board.
The problems in the athletic department are symptomatic of much deeper failures in the University of Nebraska system. As important as athletics are to Nebraskans, the lives of our children are much more important.
To this day, I remain astounded that the University of Nebraska Medical Center and Nebraska Medicine engaged in child mutilation and medical experiments on children under the guise of “gender-affirming” care.
This grievous error in judgment was probably approved of at the top. At the top of UNMC is Dr. James Linder. I told the Regents to fire him back in December 2023.
Luka Hein has sued her Nebraska health care providers for medical malpractice. If successful, she will collect millions. To prevail, her lawyers will need to satisfy a jury that the medical standard of care for Omaha was not followed. But the larger ethical question is: How was it ever a good idea to voluntarily give minors powerful sex change drugs and remove healthy female breasts? England has been at it for some time and its NHS has totally stopped gender affirming care for minors because of the bad results.
Last session, Sen. Kathleen Kauth introduced a bill to correct the bad judgment of UNMC’s leaders. Senators Machala Cavanaugh and Megan Hunt were violently opposed and so they staged a session-long filibuster and “burned the session to the ground;” their words not mine.
All of this drama and time was the result of one horrible decision at UNMC that never should have been made. “First, do no harm” means exactly what it says.
In 2024, we now know that the government’s response to Covid was completely wrong. It was the biggest unforced policy error in US history and we will be paying the price for decades. But no leader has been held accountable for being so, so wrong.
Sweden, alone in the world, took a different approach; no business or school closures, no masks and protect the elderly. The excess death numbers are now in and the Swedes were totally right.
In 2021, it was scientifically known that children were not at risk for Covid. Teachers’ unions, however, lobbied for continued school closures and masks for children. In July 2021, UNMC and the College of Public Health issued a report recommending that Nebraska school children be universally face masked, when indoors, for the coming school year. Dr. Ali Kahn leads the College of Public Health and he signed the report with others.
A study of studies was published in November of 2023. It shows that masks on children were not effective and, in fact, were very harmful to many kids. Certainly the health care academics at UNMC knew, or should have known, that the benefits of masks for kids was outweighed by the costs. For some reason, the Nebraska health care academic leaders couldn’t figure out what matters most.
When I spoke to Regents, I told them of the U.S. Navy’s accountability policy. If a ship captain runs a ship aground, he or she is fired. It’s a bright line rule. Likewise, when top Nebraska academic leaders make serious errors in judgment they need to be fired. If there is no accountability, the mistakes will continue.
After the budget, the most important job of the Regents is to hire and fire the top leaders. Dr. Jeffery Gold, UNMC’s current chancellor, is the Regents’ priority candidate for president. The obvious problem with Dr. Gold is that he has presided over a culture of failure and harm to children at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. The culture must be changed and Dr. Gold is clearly not a change agent. He’s really the worst possible candidate.
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