Two major healthcare systems have altered their websites to remove indications of racial discrimination following complaints by Do No Harm filed with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights (HHS-OCR).
Until recently, Appalachia’s Valley Health System (VHS) advertised a “Minority Healthcare Scholarship” of up to $5,000 to “patients pursuing careers in medicine, health sciences, or health administration who identify as a member of a minority racial or ethnic group.” Among the qualifying racial categories suggested by VHS were “Black/African-American, Latinx, Asian-American, Indian-American, [and] Native/Indigenous American.”
Now, however, the webpage associated with the scholarship is no longer functional. Nor does the site’s search tool produce results related to the award.
These changes appear to have been made on or around April 30. In its May 1 coverage of Do No Harm’s complaint, The Center Square noted that “[t]he page for [the] scholarship is no longer active.” Also seemingly removed was “a Facebook post that promoted it.”
That’s not all: recently, health consortium giant Kaiser Permanente added to its “Center for Black Health and Wellness” webpage a note claiming to welcome “members of any race or ethnicity.”
That disclaimer did not exist before Do No Harm’s filing of a civil rights discrimination complaint with HHS-OCR.
Such DEI-related housekeeping is not uncommon. For example, as Do No Harm reported late last month, the Stanford University School of Medicine recently altered its website to remove evidence of a commitment to DEI.
The University of Arizona College of Medicine at Tucson did something similar last year, quietly removing from its online pages content that overtly pledged support for diversity, equity, and inclusion.
As Do No Harm’s civil rights complaints against Kaiser Permanente and VHS point out, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 broadly prohibits federally funded healthcare systems from engaging in racial discrimination.
Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act is similarly clear: “an individual shall not … be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under, any health program or activity, any part of which is receiving Federal financial assistance.”
If VHS and Kaiser Permanente have concluded that Do No Harm’s complaints have merit, then they should say so and implement real change. Hiding public-facing scholarship materials from view or adding “superficial” disclaimers against a multitude of indications to the contrary are no substitutes for contrition.
