The News: The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) has filed a new federal civil rights complaint against the Ohio-based Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center for its discriminatory education, training, and scholarship programs. 

The Hospital provides a minority nursing scholarship, a minority medical imaging scholarship, a biomedical research internship for minorities, and an administrative fellowship program—all of which exclude students and candidates based on sex and/or race and thwart equal access to education and opportunities to enter the healthcare workforce. 

Because the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Affordable Care Act prohibit federal funding recipients, like Cincinnati Children’s, from discriminating against individuals in this manner, WILL is fighting back to keep discrimination and identity politics out of healthcare. 

The Quotes: WILL Associate Counsel, Cara Tolliver, stated, “Despite a national shortage of healthcare workers, some major healthcare systems in America still want to use taxpayer funds to discriminate on the basis of race and sex against otherwise eligible candidates. This is not just illegal, it’s nonsensical. The healthcare system cannot care for patients effectively, safely and efficiently, when medical education and training programs prioritize irrelevant identity politics over individual merit and essential qualities. Healthcare organizations that remain determined to flout anti-discrimination laws may soon find that the new Trump-Vance Administration will not look the other way.”  

Additional Background: Despite being a top-ranking pediatric hospital, Cincinnati Children’s discriminates on the basis of race and sex in various medical education and training opportunities.   

WILL has challenged four of the Hospital’s discriminatory programs: (1) the William K. Schubert Minority Nursing Scholarship (race and sex discrimination); (2) the Jean Turner Minority Scholarship for Medical Imaging Technology (race discrimination); (3) the Biomedical Research Internship for Minority Students (race discrimination); and (4) the Administrative Fellowship Program (race and sex discrimination). 

WILL’s federal civil rights complaint—filed with the Office for Civil Rights in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)—calls on the agency to open a formal investigation into Hospital and find that these programs discriminate against individuals based on race and sex in violation of the Affordable Care Act and Title VI of Civil Rights Act of 1964. 

Moreover, many state laws similarly prohibit private parties, such as private hospitals, from discriminating against any person on the basis of sex, race, ancestry, color, and national origin. Accordingly, hospitals, like Cincinnati Children’s, may be held to account not only under federal law, but also state law—to say nothing of civil lawsuits that victims of discrimination could pursue. 

In August 2024, WILL filed a similar civil rights complaint against the Cleveland Clinic, which is now under federal investigation for its racially discriminatory patient programming. WILL plans to continue addressing discrimination in healthcare in the coming 2025 year. 

About WILL: This effort is part of WILL’s Equality Under the Law Project, which has also targeted various programs advanced by the Biden-Harris “racial equity” agenda. WILL has had recent success under this initiative suing the Biden-Harris Administration over its “Minority Business Development Agency,” which was designed to help Americans of some races, but not others. 

Read more here:
Complaint, December 2024