Baltimore-area universities are urging state lawmakers to reject applications for new academic programs that copy their already existing ones.

Three cases remain undecided this summer, as members of the Maryland Higher Education Commission wait for a designated group of state lawmakers to announce updates to the approval process in December.

But some universities refuse to wait until the winter. The higher education commission has hosted two hearings in the past two weeks, both for proposed doctoral physical therapy tracks – one from Johns Hopkins University, and the other from Stevenson University.

Both will be approved or denied in the coming weeks, said commission chair Cassie Motz.

But University of Maryland Baltimore (UMB) and Maryland Eastern Shore (UMES), a historically-Black university, contest that these programs – if approved – would be duplicates of theirs.

And that would limit the resources available to their students, said Victoria Marchese, head of the physical therapy department at UMB.

“There's reasons why Stevenson and Johns Hopkins want to open up a PT program,” Marchese said in a hearing on Wednesday. “Because one, it's lucrative. It's easy to start. But it's not the right thing to do.”

UMB and UMES representatives argue that there is an oversupply of physical therapists in the area, and a limited supply of faculty and clinical internship sites to fulfill their programs — let alone two more.

“If we had unlimited clinical sites, and the faculty needed to educate students, we would grow our own program,” said UMB provost Roger Ward.

But Emily Dow, the state’s assistant secretary of academic affairs, says post-pandemic data shows vacancies in the physical therapy field in Maryland – and increased demand from students applying to doctoral physical therapy (DPT) programs.

These two cases are not Baltimore’s first experience with degree duplication.

In 2013, U.S. District Judge Catherine Blake found that Maryland had allowed predominantly-white colleges to harm historically-Black institutions by copying their academic programs and siphoning available resources.

This ruling stemmed from a 2006 lawsuit on behalf of four historically-Black colleges in the region – Bowie State, Coppin State, Morgan State and UMES – which alleged that the state “systematically undermined the institutions” in funding, making them unable to compete with their peers.

In 2021, Blake ruled that the state had to pay the four universities $555 million over the next ten years to make up for the injustices – including the 2013 degree duplication finding.

Now, two years later, UMES leaders are saying Hopkins and Stevenson are repeating history. And they’re not the only ones.

How did we get here? 

Dow, the assistant secretary of academics, is requesting approval from the higher education commissioners to allow Stevenson and Hopkins to create their physical therapy doctoral programs.

But she first greenlighted Stevenson’s program in February. And that decision has a complex history.

Stevenson first submitted its proposal in 2021. Back then, Dow rejected the program largely because of a letter from the American Council of Academic Physical Therapists that discouraged new physical therapy programs because of a surplus nationwide.

The organization retracted that letter in 2021, claiming its members have no legal position on the state of the physical therapy field now. That’s why Stevenson resubmitted in December 2022.

“And that letter was a critical element to the previous decision,” Dow said in the April 2023 hearing. The redaction of that evidence caused Dow to reverse her 2021 position, endorsing Stevenson’s program.

But when commissioners voted, they overruled Dow’s decision.

And things got even more complicated after that.

In August, the Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown released a letter saying that the state higher education board needs a majority of all commissioners – not just those present at hearings – to overturn Dow’s decisions.

The letter targeted a June vote to approve Towson University’s business doctoral program despite objections from Morgan State University due to copying – the third case to be tried this summer.

Only seven commissioners were present for that vote – which was not enough to reach an effective majority, the attorney general said. The same number of commissioners voted to reject Stevenson’s physical therapy program.

“Once the attorney general's office gave this advice, the commission recognized that it should be applied fairly and consistently,” said Chair Cassie Motz. So, Stevenson also received a re-do hearing.

Towson University revoked their business program proposal after the state higher education commission asked for a voluntary pause on degree approvals while lawmakers debate changes to the process.

But Stevenson and Johns Hopkins scheduled their hearings for early September.

What’s happening now?

Dow agrees that the proposed programs from Hopkins and Stevenson are both duplicates of those at UMB and UMES. But simply being a copy isn’t enough for a program to be rejected, she says.

Instead, the duplication has to be “unreasonable” and likely to cause harm. Neither of the new programs fit this criteria, Dow said.

Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that Maryland will need 3,400 new physical therapists by 2030, Dow pointed out. And UMB and UMES had over 450 qualified student applicants for their physical therapy doctoral programs in 2022 – with only 104 spots total available.

Maryland is also being “dwarfed” by nearby states in terms of DPT offerings. Pennsylvania, for example, has 21 – while Maryland only has two.

“We prioritize bringing students to Maryland and keeping them here,” Dow said in last Thursday’s hearing for Hopkins.

And Hopkins and Stevenson being small, private universities – compared to the large, public UMB and UMES campuses – makes the proposed programs distinct, Dow said.

But UMB and UMES leaders say they aren’t distinct enough.

Both programs “cannot be successful without directly competing with the existing programs for very scarce resources needed to host a successful academic program, including but not limited to clinical sites and the faculty needed to educate,” said Ward, provost at UMB.

And while Hopkins and Stevenson claim that they will partner with new sites for clinical placements – including the Hopkins’ medical system – Marchese says there is no guarantee that these sites will be enough.

“They can change their mind,” Marchese said. “If somebody goes out on sick leave, or they have a shortage in their practice, then one of the students is not going to be able to come. We face this every single day.”

Besides, Marchese said, the existing programs are meeting physical therapy demand in the state.

“No matter what numbers we look at, no matter how you want to spin this, turn it upside down, whatever reports you're coming from, in the state of Maryland, the supply of physical therapists outpaces demand,” she said.

But Dow says there are vacancies not captured by pre-pandemic data that need to be filled.

“There have been significant shifts in the demand for health professionals,” she said. “Any analysis of workforce demand that was conducted with pre pandemic data should be evaluated with caution.”