Rep. Sewell Presses HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Comments Suggesting Black Children Should Be “Re-Parented”

Washington D.C. - Today, during a House Ways and Means Committee hearing, U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell (AL-07) questioned Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about his previous comments suggesting that Black children with ADHD should be "re-parented." Sewell pressed the Secretary to clarify and account for those remarks, which he now falsely denies.

Watch the full exchange here.

In her opening, Sewell noted that the Secretary has made "a number of outlandish and frankly disturbing comments-both before and during [his] tenure as Secretary of Health and Human Services." Sewell cited a 2024 interview in which Kennedy discussed ADHD diagnoses among Black children and suggested that some should be "re-parented." When asked directly about his comments, Kennedy falsely denied making them despite publicly accessible online footage.

Sewell pressed Kennedy about his qualifications, noting that he is not a board-certified physician, has no medical degree, and has never parented a Black child. She underscored the implications of his comments, stating that despite this lack of medical training, he appeared to suggest "that the federal government should take Black children away from their families, re-parent them, and send them off to 'wellness farms' instead of providing them with evidence-based medical care."

Sewell reminded the Secretary of our nation's "long and painful history of separating Black children from their families," from slavery to Jim Crow to modern child-welfare disparities. She emphasized that Black children are still removed from their homes at disproportionately high rates, often due to systemic bias rather than actual harm.

"For you to suggest that Black families are not capable of raising their own children is deeply offensive," Sewell said.

Sewell also implored the Secretary to consider the impact of his words given the enormous power he yields.

"When you suggest re-parenting Black children, when you sow doubt about the safety of vaccines, and when you promote unproven statements that have no basis in science, you endanger the lives of everyone across this nation."

Sewell concluded, "I expect, and the American people expect, that you choose your words with sincereness and with seriousness-the seriousness that your position demands. American lives are at stake, and it's time that you start acting like it, sir."

###