Case Name: DNH v. Cleveland Clinic

Type of Case: Equality Under the Law

Filed On: August 14, 2024

Current Status: The Office for Civil Rights in the Department of Health and Human Services will initiate a federal investigation into Cleveland Clinic concerning racially discriminatory patient care.

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.

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.