BayCare’s Northwestern partnership is a bad call that Florida shouldn’t ignore

BayCare’s executives recently partnered with Northwestern Medicine to bring more advanced organ transplant services to West Central Florida.

While that effort is noble, the partnership almost immediately courted criticism from several top Florida officials, as Northwestern University has been accused of antisemitism and supporting the sort of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies Florida has spent years trying to rip out of its own institutions.

Northwestern’s actions even caught the ire of Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia, Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson and Attorney General James Uthmeier, who collaborated to put BayCare on notice.

The three state officials sent BayCare a letter in September demanding either that it end its partnership with Northwestern or show a full accounting proving that no state funding is making its way there. BayCare insists it is fully compliant with Florida law and that no taxpayer dollars, directly or indirectly, are going to Northwestern.

First, they should prove it. But second, even if BayCare can satisfy the accounting question, the larger issue remains: Why on earth did a major Florida hospital system think it was wise to hitch itself to Northwestern in the first place?

Last year, Northwestern faced a federal investigation over antisemitism concerns. Ultimately, the university and the Department of Justice entered into an agreement ending the probe, which included Northwestern agreeing to comply with antidiscrimination laws.

But as recently as February, campus activists there circulated a petition targeting a lecture by an Israeli transplant surgeon and trafficked in grotesque claims about Israeli organ harvesting, the kind of blood-libel-adjacent filth that should be disqualifying in any serious institution.

That’s in addition to the university facing federal scrutiny over its DEI policies, prompting the university to change course only under threat from the Donald Trump administration.

Yet BayCare looked at all of that and said, apparently, yes, this is exactly the academic partner we want helping us build a flagship transplant program in Florida.

That is stunningly poor judgment.

No one is saying West Central Florida does not need more transplant capacity. No one is arguing patients should have fewer options. BayCare’s own March announcement made clear there is a real unmet need in the region, particularly for kidney transplants, and that’s obviously an important issue for families struggling to get care for their loved ones.

But Northwestern is not the only medical institution in America. It is not the only one with transplant expertise. It is not the only one capable of advising on how to build a high-performing program.

This was not the only option here. It was a choice, and a bad one.

If Florida universities, colleges and public institutions are expected to abide by stricter standards regarding discriminatory campus climates, then BayCare should not get to backdoor a relationship with a partner operating under a completely different code.

That is the double standard Ingoglia, Simpson, Uthmeier are rightfully concerned about.

BayCare says it exists to serve West Central Florida, that it is community-owned and governed locally. Wonderful. Then act like it. Act like a Florida institution accountable to Florida communities.

Act like Jewish patients, Jewish doctors and Jewish families in this state might reasonably take a dim view of seeing their local hospital system partner with a university whose orbit has been consumed by antisemitism controversies.

Act like public trust matters.

Instead, BayCare seems to want the best of both worlds. It wants to drape itself in the language of community mission while enjoying the halo effect of a big-name academic collaboration. It wants everyone to admire the ambition of the transplant program but not ask too many questions about the company it keeps.

Sorry. That is not how this works. And let’s be honest about how this would be treated if the ideological valence were reversed.

If a major Florida hospital system announced a strategic collaboration with a university that had become nationally notorious for racism scandals, anti-gay harassment, or some other form of ugly extremism, BayCare’s defenders would not be telling us to focus narrowly on service lines and performance metrics. They would be screaming for accountability, and rightly so. They would say values matter. Again, rightly so.

So why should antisemitism accusations be waved away? They should not. And that is what makes BayCare’s response so underwhelming.

“Our strategic collaboration with Northwestern University is in service to that community mission as we accelerate the region’s access to academic medicine and all its attributes for delivering the most advanced, high-quality care for our patients,” BayCare said.

“BayCare is fully compliant with all Florida laws, and no state funding — directly or indirectly — is provided to Northwestern University.”

That may be enough to satisfy the narrowest legal inquiry. It is nowhere near enough to satisfy the moral one.

The real problem is that BayCare appears not to understand that partnering with Northwestern under these circumstances is itself a statement. It says that access to elite branding matters more than avoiding institutions steeped in serious controversy.

It says BayCare either did not notice the baggage or did not care.

Neither explanation inspires confidence.

And if BayCare executives find that unfair, they might consider the much simpler option they had from the start: Don’t partner with a tainted institution and then act shocked when people notice the smell.