From ‘DEI’ to ‘Inclusive Excellence’
Dr. Charles “Chuck” Murry, chair of the Department of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at the USC Keck School of Medicine, explains his reasoning behind his decision to change his department’s DEI website amid the Trump administration’s anti-DEI executive orders.
Dr. Charles “Chuck” Murry, Department Chair of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at the USC Keck School of Medicine, sitting in his office. (Photo by Sheridan Hunter)
By Sheridan Hunter
April 28, 2025 at 11:21PM PDT
Since he was 14 years old, Dr. Charles “Chuck” Murry knew he wanted to be a doctor, seeking to create impact by discovering new kinds of medicine. Today, however, he finds himself contemplating another potential impact: his decision to remove DEI from his department’s website.
“I think it’s the right thing to do, even though it sticks in my craw to do it,” Murry said in an interview with Annenberg Media.
As the Department Chair of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at the USC Keck School of Medicine, Murry dedicates his work to regenerating the human heart, relying on federal funding to support his department’s research efforts.
Since the Trump administration’s attack on DEI at the beginning of the year, several USC schools and departments have opted to either change or remove their DEI programming, staff positions or mission statements entirely. Murry’s department, which once promoted “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI),” now embraces “Inclusive Excellence.”
“When we were asked to scrub all of our DEI language from our website… I mean, it really wasn’t much of an ask,” Murry remembered. “It came from the president, down to the dean, down to me as the department chair, and I was asked to pass it on to my department.”
With USC already under investigation for “Antisemitic Discrimination and Harassment” for their student-led pro-Palestine protests last year, Murry urged his department to remove their DEI language. In response, and as he remembers it, Cristy Lytal, the department’s public communications manager, asked Murry if they even had a choice.
“I guess we always have a choice,” he said. “I don’t think the gain from resisting is worth the cost of the consequences.”
Coming from a traditional Christian upbringing in North Dakota during the 60s and 70s – “a decade of major political assassinations,” he remembered – Murry’s family leaned more on the conservative side of things, thinking that the world had gone mad. Murry, on the other hand, “was just part of the herd going through and doing [his] thing,” he said, opting out of participating in advocacy groups or political movements.
Today, Murry considers himself “fiscally conservative [and socially] progressive,” crediting his research at Duke University to when things changed more radically for him.
For Murry, educating people is the single most impactful thing one can do – so much so that it influenced his own decision to pursue a career in academic medicine and become a professor.
“My number one beacon in my North Star is to regenerate the human heart, and I need to do that through scientific research,” he asserted. “That’s my first priority.”
In his eyes, being able to continue the work of researching and educating others is his main concern.
“They can change what we write on our websites… but they can’t change what we teach, they can’t change what we study, they can’t change who we enroll, and they can’t change who we hire,” Murry said. “Those are things I’m not willing to compromise on. And if I were to have to lose my job over something like that, I’d be bummed… but I could look myself in the mirror and say, ‘You did the right thing.’”