6 February 13 - 19, 2025 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents from, thanks to the way the interviews were structured. “I don’t know if he was a unanimous pick. We never had a vote,” he said. We broke up into groups to do interviews. Me and another member interviewed five can- didates. Hadnot was my first pick. He inter- viewed well, and if he does the things he said he’s going to do, then I’ll be very pleased.” S ommerman commended the job that interim Director Griffiths did in terms of addressing some of the most alarming issues noted in various reports over the past year or so. But even still, the county commissioner admits there’s a long way to go for Hadnot when he starts. For his part, Hadnot, who has served as director in Collin County since 2016, sees re- building the trust that has been damaged as job No. 1. Hadnot didn’t reply to multiple re- quests for an interview, but he did speak to WFAA after he was announced as the new director. “I’d be remiss if I didn’t say the past re- ports were concerning” Hadnot said when asked about the troubling reports regarding the Henry Wade center. “However, at the end of the day I do know that there is a sig- nificant group of stakeholders in Dallas County that are committed to doing this work and doing it at an exceptionally high level.” Dallas County Judge Clay Lewis Jenkins facilitated a meeting between Hadnot and Waters in early January. The advocates who met with Hadnot liked that the new director said he would be willing to meet with indi- viduals who suffered mistreatment while at Henry Wade. It was later than when the Dallas Black Clergy wanted to meet with Hadnot, and even though he admits he prefers to temper his own expectations for now, Waters is at least encouraged that the community’s voice will not be silenced when it comes to the treatment of the youth of the Henry Wade Juvenile Justice Center any longer. “To the extent he could be in our meet- ing, he [Hadnot] was very open and trans- parent,” Waters said. “He certainly actively listened to our concerns and I think most importantly, he seems committed to keeping the door open so we can continue in our en- gagement and dialogue.” ▼ HEALTHCARE PATIENT CONCERNS DALLAS LGBTQ+ CLINIC HOLDING STEADY DESPITE TRUMP ATTACKS . BY EMMA RUBY “W e don’t know,” is a phrase you never want to hear in the doctor’s office, but over the last few weeks Dr. John Carlo has found himself saying it often. Carlo is the CEO of Prism Health North Texas, a conglomerate of community clinics, dental offices and pharmacies founded in the 1980s in response to North Texas’ HIV and AIDS crisis. While Prism’s services have since expanded, catering to marginalized communities by offering specialized care re- mains the company’s mission. But changes to the healthcare industry initiated by President Donald Trump could pose long-term challenges to organizations like Prism. One month into his second term, Trump has released a flurry of executive orders tar- geting diversity, equity and inclusion initia- tives across the federal government, which has resulted in some specialized healthcare getting caught in the crossfire. “In a community health center environ- ment, virtually every patient we see is going to have some representation to being disen- franchised,” Carlo told the Observer. “Our real concern is how this is going to affect [our patients] and where we see some big challenges in particular is anything that’s going to inhibit access to services. While we haven’t seen anything yet that is 100% going to be the case, I think the fear alone is some- thing that we’re really having to work with.” Carlo said patients across North Texas are expressing a variety of fears in response to the noise coming out of Washington. As U.S. immigration enforcement agents carry out raids on those believed to be in the coun- try illegally, patients have told Carlo they are worried their immigration status will be documented in their health records. Prism does not ask patients for their im- migration status, Carlo told us. While Texas Gov. Greg Abbott did issue an executive or- der last year requiring hospitals to docu- ment patients’ immigration status, the order has not been expanded to cover clinics like Prism. Other patients have expressed concern surrounding their gender identity being doc- umented, and whether or not federal funding that supports HIV care for low-income pa- tients will be continued, Carlo said. Accord- ing to Prism Health’s website, around 30% of North Texans living with HIV receive care from one of Prism’s four clinics. For now, the answers are few and far be- tween. Even if the doctor doesn’t have many answers, he hasn’t started to panic. “As a nonprofit community health center that’s been doing this a long time, we’re not strangers to disruption and uncertainty,” Carlo said. “This is a lot like a government shutdown, which has happened in other years in the past. We’re not strangers to see- ing funding cuts or suddenly things change in terms of grants and resources. It does feel a little different today because everything has happened so suddenly and quickly. But one of the things we are being careful about is to not overreact because I think the situa- tion is very fluid at this point.” Carlo does acknowledge that there have been “threats” in the direction of funding cuts or halting certain types of care. Last month, Trump ended federal sup- port for gender-affirming care for minors, care that major medical groups such as the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics support. (Gender affirming care for minors was out- lawed in Texas in 2023.) Following an executive order ruling that the federal government only recognizes the male and female genders, the Trump admin- istration directed federal health agencies to scrub their websites of what was once pub- licly available data on a variety of topics. In a memo sent to federal workers last week, employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were instructed to remove any content related to gender iden- tity from the organizations’ websites within just a few days. As a result, webpages like Health Disparities Among LQBTQ Youth, and Fast Facts: HIV and Transgender People have been scrubbed. The centers’ HIV webpage was also taken down temporarily, although at least some of the content was restored as of Wednesday. A note at the top of the webpage reads “CDC’s website is being modified to comply with President Trump’s Executive Orders.” The Federal Health and Human Services Department and the National Institutes of Health have also removed a number of web- pages since Trump’s order. Many of those webpages, Carlo said, have been used by medical professionals for decades as sources for information or re- search on topics that affect their patients’ lives. Ensuring that the publication of scien- tific studies or journals remains public is something he believes the medical commu- nity needs to remain “very vigilant” about. “It’s certainly concerning the degree of information that has been taken off of gov- ernment-level websites,” Carlo said. “We’re essentially dealing with a lot of links that don’t go anywhere anymore. So there is some concern about that. I don’t know at this point how large or great of scale it is. I don’t think anybody knows right now.” With information from the Trump ad- ministration still vague, Prism has begun identifying programs that receive federal funding that could be at risk and creating contingency plans. The organization has been funded by federal grants “virtually since its inception,” Carlo added, but securing private sector or community funding could be a future step in ensuring Dallas’ most at-risk residents have a continuation in care. “As a health center in Dallas, we’re in- vested in doing the work that we do. We don’t really want to get into the politics of things,” Carlo said. “We do think that the patient-level services is not really the battle being fought here, and I think everybody agrees that hav- ing health centers like us on the ground, in the trenches in the communities addressing health care and making people healthy, is a valuable part of our community.” ▼ HIGHER EDUCATION WHAT DOES IT MEAN? LOCAL UNIVERSITIES DEFINE ANTISEMITISM FOR THEIR CAMPUSES. BY EMMA RUBY P resident Donald Trump is taking on antisemitism in schools, the Justice Department announced recently. The department started last week by an- nouncing the creation of a new task force, led by the DOJ, the U.S. Department of Edu- cation and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, that’s dedicated to in- vestigating anti-Jewish harassment on col- lege campuses. In an executive order titled “Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semi- tism,” Trump pointed to reports of intimida- tion, harassment and physical threats and assault as the “unacceptable” treatment Jewish students have faced since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack in Israel. The new task force launches amid grow- ing concern about antisemitism on college campuses. According to the Anti-Defama- tion League’s Center for Antisemitism Re- search, 73% of Jewish students across the country say they have experienced some form of discrimination on campus during the 2023-2024 school year. To effectively counter campus antisemi- tism, universities must first define it, says Alex Horn, regional director of ADL Texoma. Last month, Harvard University joined hun- dreds of other campuses, including a number of schools in the Dallas area, in adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alli- ance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism that is lauded by the ADL yet criticized by some free-expression advocacy groups. The definition includes eleven examples of antisemitic bias, such as “accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of in- venting or exaggerating the Holocaust,” while also offering a non-legally binding, more general definition. “We often encourage organizations in the DFW area to adopt the IHRA definition be- cause it signifies a meaningful resolve to com- bat hate directed at the Jewish community,” Horn says. “There are a lot of folks who aren’t Nathan Hunsinger The Henry Wade Juvenile Justice Center has had reports of poor living conditions. Unfair Park from p4
