A Michigan dentist is suing Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs over implicit bias training imposed through an executive directive.
Kent Wildern spent 40 years as a dentist in Grand Rapids until he allowed his professional license to expire rather than submit to a two-hour implicit bias training requirement created by LARA in June 2021.
That requirement stemmed from a 2020 executive directive from Whitmer that tasked the department with mandating the implicit bias training for over 400,000 professionals licensed under the state’s Public Health Code, with the exception of veterinarians.
“I served my community for four decades,” Wildern said in the complaint, filed with the help of the Pacific Legal Foundation in the Michigan Court of Claims last week. “But I won’t be forced to take an ideological course just to keep my license.”
The lawsuit argues LARA illegally bypassed public debate and legislative oversight to impose the training through its rulemaking process, exceeding its statutory authority.
“Rather than remain within the constraints placed upon it by the legislature, LARA promulgated Rule 338.4004 at the Governor’s direction in order to implement ideologically imbued public health policy that no statute has authorized,” according to the lawsuit.
Folks who have refused to comply with the policy face serious consequences.
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“Since September 2024, LARA has fined at least 132 healthcare professionals a total of nearly $76,000 for failing to meet the implicit bias training requirement,” according to the Pacific Legal Foundation. “Others have had their credentials suspended, and still others have reluctantly surrendered their licenses rather than comply – all during a worsening shortage of healthcare workers in Michigan.”
The case ultimately asks the court to decide whether LARA can impose broad mandates without legislative approval, suggesting the ruling could limit the scope of state agency rulemaking that doesn’t go through lawmakers.
Wildern argues in the lawsuit the training “infringes upon the freedom of thought and conscience by subjecting individuals to highly ideological training programs designed to pressure them into adopting a particular viewpoint on a topic of ongoing and intense public debate.”
“LARA has no legitimate government interest in requiring what amounts to nor more than mandated indoctrination as a condition for the ability to practice a healthcare profession with the purpose of regulating individual healthcare professionals’ subjective states of mind,” according to the lawsuit.
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“Even if the government has a legitimate interest in regulating individuals’ subjective states of mind when they are or want to be credentialed healthcare professionals, there are less-restrictive means to achieve the goal of mitigating any negative healthcare outcomes that could stem from implicit bias,” it continued. “For example, prohibitions of discriminatory action.”
The lawsuit seeks declaratory judgements finding Whitmer’s directive unconstitutionally delegated legislative authority to LARA, and that the rule created by LARA violates substantive due process. Wildern also seeks a permanent injunction banning LARA from enforcing the rule, as well as costs and “any other relief this Court deems just and proper.”
“It is unconstitutional for Michigan to weaponize its licensing powers to force healthcare professionals to choose between their careers and submitting to ideological indoctrination,” Wilson Freeman, attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation, said in a statement. “Moreover, Michigan’s mandate for implicit bias training came from an unelected agency rather than the legislature, sidestepping any public debate on the issue.”