A legal nonprofit claims two of the hospital’s programs violate federal law by prioritizing racial minorities for treatment.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Service’s Office for Civil Rights concluded on Tuesday that it has “sufficient authority and cause” to investigate allegations that the Cleveland Clinic violated federal civil-rights law by discriminating against white patients.
The investigation was opened in response to a complaint filed by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL) on behalf of the medical watchdog Do No Harm on August 14. The complaint alleges that the Cleveland Clinic “treats white individuals differently from certain racial and ethnic minorities in the tailoring and provision of services provided through its Minority Stroke Program and Minority Men’s Health Center.
Because the programs “discriminate against patients based on race and are racially motivated to provide services to some in a different manner from those provided to others, Cleveland Clinic’s programs violate the anti-discrimination provisions of Title VI and the Affordable Care Act…,” WILL said in a press release.
“The problem with race-based health equity initiatives like Cleveland Clinics’ is that these approaches necessarily rely on broad stereotypes about race to assume needs, and they inherently overlook individuals who need or who would benefit from special care or attention,” WILL associate counsel Cara Tolliver told National Review.
The Minority Stroke Program aims to “increase stroke awareness among minority groups in order to lower stroke rates and improve stroke outcomes” for demographics with higher rates of stroke, Cleveland Clinic’s website explains. Because blacks and Latinos are more likely to experience strokes than their white counterparts, the program focuses on the medical needs of minorities instead of providing equal care to all patients.
Tolliver finds this explanation to be inadequate.
“If you look on the other side of the black-white disparities, whites are more likely to suffer from numerous conditions- Parkinson’s, macular degeneration, skin cancer, MS…Should Cleveland Clinic open an osteoporosis clinic or an MS clinic for white people? They shouldn’t,” she claims. “They should just be focused on caring and providing treatment for all patients who need it, regardless of race. And that’s what the law is, and that’s what this complaint is all about.”
Likewise, the Minority Men’s Health Center seeks to treat minority male populations suffering from diabetes, hypertension, prostate cancer, stroke, and various other illnesses. It was founded in 2003 to “broadly address the health issues that particularly impact African American and Hispanic men,” the clinic’s website reads.
Tolliver pins the motivations for these initiatives largely on the “political calls for this kind of race-based action in the recent past.”
“The Biden-Harris administration has been championing its so-called ‘racial equity’ agenda as a cornerstone priority for the last four years, which has needlessly and illegally divided Americans on the basis of race.”
“HHS-OCR’s decision to open an investigation into Cleveland Clinic is a step forward to stamping out the use of unlawful racial stereotypes in healthcare in favor of a legitimate, individualized approach to medicine,” Tolliver said.
“While our current political climate is forcing archaic racial stereotypes in every aspect of decision-making, we will continue to fight for equal treatment in healthcare, where race-neutral decisions based on individual need are critical.”
In response to the complaint, a spokesperson for the Cleveland Clinic said they are committed to serving all people regardless of race.
“Our mission is to care for life, research for health, and educate those we serve. Our job in fulfilling our mission is to care for all individuals across the communities we serve regardless of race, ethnicity, or other characteristics,” the spokesperson said.
WILL’s complaint comes on the heels of the Supreme Court’s June 2023 ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard that Harvard College and the University of North Carolina violated Title VI by judging undergraduate admissions applicants based on race. The WILL complaint notes the landmark decision applies to all Title VI actors, not just higher-education institutions.