Cleveland Clinic prioritizes racial politics over medicine.

The News: The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) has filed a federal civil rights complaint under Title VI and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) against the Ohio-based Cleveland Clinic on behalf of Do No Harm (DNH), a nationwide membership organization that opposes racially discriminatory programs and policies in healthcare and seeks to keep identity politics out of medical education, research, and clinical practice.

Our complaint focuses on two specific examples of race discrimination at Cleveland Clinic: the Minority Stroke Program and the Minority Men’s Health Center. Both programs provide education, prevention, treatment, and other assistance and resources to patients for addressing stroke, diabetes, and other stroke risk factors, men’s health conditions, and mental health issues.

Unfortunately, the programs are apparently not for everyone. As Cleveland Clinic explains it, these special programs are specifically purposed for “preventing and treating [health conditions] in racial and ethnic minorities.” According to the clinic, under these programs, the “overall components” for patient appointments “resemble those offered to all patients [except that] they are tailored to minorities.”

However, Title VI and the ACA prohibit healthcare providers, like Cleveland Clinic, from attempting to segregate or otherwise offer separate healthcare services based on a patient’s race. Cleveland Clinic may not implement racial preferences, or programs that are racially motivated, to provide services or benefits in a different manner from those provided to others.

The Quotes: WILL Associate Counsel, Cara Tolliver, remarked, “The problem with Cleveland Clinic’s racial persona grata / persona non grata model is that it engages the dangerous practice of using race as a proxy for legitimate health risks. Whether a particular patient should be prioritized, promoted, pursued, and included for medical assistance and care does not change simply because a patient is the wrong color. Cleveland Clinic’s endeavor to create a dichotomy of care that assumes what individuals need based on their race is both inappropriate and illegal.”

“Race-based discrimination and segregation of patients degrades trust in the healthcare system and is illegal,” said Do No Harm Chairman, Dr. Stanley Goldfarb. “The laudable goals set forth by the Cleveland Clinic’s special programs to assist patients struggling with strokes, diabetes, mental health, and other health concerns can and should be achieved without racial bias.”

Additional Background: The underlying goal of Cleveland Clinic’s minority stroke and men’s health programs rests on an unlawful interest for the sake of race. Ultimately, these programs seek to balance the scales of mortality and morbidity with nothing more than a bare reliance on a patient’s skin pigmentation.

Race-based health equity initiatives, like Cleveland Clinic’s programs, aim to filter and view health outcomes through a racial lens, assuming that one’s race says all the doctor needs to know about who needs medical care the most. However, beyond race, any number of demographic filters could be applied concerning almost any characteristic to compare and address health outcomes—to name a few: height, eye color, birth order, handedness, entertainment preferences, where one lives, etc. This does not mean that these demographics, or every available demographic, are appropriate, relevant, comprehensive, or lawful standards for evaluating and addressing health outcomes.

Indeed, many studies have indicated that the appearance of racial disparities is explained, not by race, but by other factors and variables relating to social support systems, neighborhood factors, education, and employment—barriers that transcend race and can be responsible for causing disparities in health outcomes.

Discounting relevant and legitimate factors and variables for health risks and outcomes in exchange for simple, blind deference to skin pigmentation for no other purpose than balancing broad racial disparities does not help those who need care most. Rather, this approach invokes guesswork that is the product of broad racial stereotyping, which is not only offensive, but also erodes the ability of the healthcare system to effectively address health conditions and undermines provider-patient trust.

Given that stroke and diabetes are leading causes of death in the United States, and that mental health conditions plague more than one in five adults, Cleveland Clinic should be extending the care efforts described by its special stroke and men’s health programs to all patients who need it, without regard to race in accordance with anti-discrimination laws.

About WILL: This challenge on behalf of DNH was made pursuant to WILL’s Healthcare Initiative and Equality Under the Law Project, which oppose discriminatory programs and policies that would prioritize characteristics such as race in decision-making over fairness, equality, and quality outcomes.

Since 2021, WILL attorneys have represented 58 clients in 21 states as part of its Equality Under the Law (“EUL”) Project. To date, WILL’s EUL project has won six times in court with many cases still pending. WILL was recently awarded over $350,000 by a federal court after it successfully sued the Biden Administration for race discrimination. Find out more at will law.org/equality.

Read More:

• Notice of Complaint, 8.14.24
• HHS-OCR Complaint, 8.14.24