DEI and Health Care
Black men and women are at least two times as likely as white Americans to die from strokes. Hospitals around the country have long sought to bring those numbers down.
Now, the Cleveland Clinic, a prestigious hospital system, is being accused of illegally discriminating on the basis of race for operating a program to prevent and treat strokes and other conditions among minority patients.
The allegation pushes the fight against race-based programs into untested legal territory, arguing that healthcare providers can’t use racial and ethnic demographics to target treatment, preventive care or patient education.
Activist groups have challenged private- and public-sector diversity efforts in education, employment and contracting, often using civil rights laws originally drafted to protect minority populations. These efforts gained new prominence with last summer’s Supreme Court decision barring the use of race in college admissions and are reshaping institutional practices.
“Race discrimination is a defining feature” of the programs at the Cleveland Clinic, two activist groups allege in a complaint filed Wednesday with the civil-rights office of the federal Department of Health and Human Services.
