Cleveland Clinic Scrubs Minority-Only Health Center After Federal Complaint

The Cleveland Clinic has quietly removed references to its race-based “Minority Men’s Health Center” from its website following a federal civil rights complaint filed by a conservative organization. The complaint, lodged by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty on behalf of the group Do No Harm, accused the Clinic of illegal discrimination under the Civil Rights Act and the Affordable Care Act.

Filed on August 14, the complaint specifically targeted the Clinic’s “Minority Stroke Program” and the “Minority Men’s Health Center.” The latter, which had been prominently featured on the Clinic’s website, focused on “minority health concerns” and aimed to address health disparities within minority populations. However, after the complaint, the webpage dedicated to the Minority Men’s Health Center was scrubbed and now redirects to information about kidney health.

Despite the removal, remnants of the center's existence can still be found in news releases and other areas of the Clinic’s website. Meanwhile, the Minority Stroke Program, which aims to improve stroke outcomes among racial and ethnic minorities, remains active and is still featured on the Clinic’s site. The program claims to increase “stroke awareness among minority groups in order to lower stroke rates and improve stroke outcomes.”

In response to inquiries, the Cleveland Clinic stated, “We removed the Minority Men’s Health Center page from our website because the center has not been in place for several years. Our Minority Stroke Program is still active and is open to all patients.”

The federal complaint was based on the argument that racially-focused programs like those at the Cleveland Clinic create unnecessary division by segregating patients based on race. Dr. Jared Ross, a senior fellow with Do No Harm, argued that such programs are not only harmful but also illegal. “Anytime we have segregation based on race, it’s harmful,” Ross stated. “We have a huge politically incentivized faction that wants to bring back segregation, and it’s really unfortunate to go back to this idea of clinics for white people and clinics for black people.”

While the Clinic’s decision to remove the Minority Men’s Health Center from its website is seen as a step in the right direction by some, concerns remain about whether the Clinic might revive these programs under different names or formats. The broader debate about race-based initiatives in healthcare is far from settled, as institutions across the country grapple with how to address health disparities without crossing legal or ethical lines.

The Cleveland Clinic, which employs over 48,000 people across 14 affiliated hospitals in Ohio, Florida, and Nevada, will likely continue to face scrutiny over how it balances its mission of addressing health disparities with the requirements of federal law.

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