Penn and WURD started a Black Doctors Directory. A lawsuit says that’s discrimination.
Do No Harm is a national nonprofit that advocates against DEI in medicine.
Penn Medicine created an online directory of Black doctors to help people in underserved communities access care. Now a conservative health-care nonprofit is claiming it discriminates against white providers.
The group, Do No Harm, filed a lawsuit in March in U.S. District Court in Eastern Pennsylvania, saying that the directory violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race.
Do No Harm, which advocates against diversity, equity, and inclusion in medicine, sued after one of its 16,000 members was not able to join because they are white, according to legal filings.
“The Black Doctors Directory is yet another example of Penn Medicine and other institutions prioritizing identity politics over care,” said Stanley Goldfarb, chairman of Do No Harm and a former associate dean at Penn’s medical school. “It is both wrong and a gross misuse of taxpayer money to exclude doctors from the Directory’s advertising advantages just because they are not Black.”
Penn Medicine and WURD, the Black-owned talk radio station in Philadelphia, launched the directory in October 2024 as a way to connect people with physicians who provide “high-quality, respectful, culturally competent care,” according to the directory’s website.
The online directory includes contact information for about 100 Black doctors from various health systems in Philadelphia and the surrounding Pennsylvania and New Jersey suburbs.
Penn declined comment due to pending litigation.
“We’re in conversation with our community every day, and we think the Black Doctors Directory is an important and needed contribution to the health and well-being of all Philadelphians,” said Ashanti Martin, general manager for WURD Radio.
Conflict over addressing race disparities
The Black Doctors Directory is among the ways Penn and its partners have attempted to address issues contributing to racial health disparities. Philadelphia’s Black residents are at greater risk of developing chronic health conditions, experiencing complications during childbirth, and dying prematurely, compared to white residents.
Leading medical organizations, including the American Medical Association and American Association of Medical Colleges, have encouraged health institutions to train more diverse doctors and help patients access providers with shared racial or ethnic backgrounds.
“Patients — including those who are veterans, of different religions, live in rural areas, or are disabled — may have unique and specific life experiences. Doctors who understand something about those experiences can provide more effective and personalized care," according to AAMC guidance on DEI in medicine.
The legacy of segregated hospitals and the mistreatment of Black patients by leading medical institutions, including those in Philadelphia, help to explain why many people today prefer health-care providers who share their cultural backgrounds.
Older Philadelphia residents, for example, may remember hospitals that were dedicated to treating Black patients, as many health-care services remained segregated until the 1960s.
More recently, Penn apologized in 2021 for a racist chapter in its medical history, in this case for acne medication medical experiments that a former doctor conducted on prison inmates, most of them Black, between the 1950s and 1970s.
But shifting political headwinds have brought scrutiny to many of these efforts.
The Trump administration has threatened to withhold federal funding from institutions that do not comply with orders to cease diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, spurring change at top Philadelphia institutions.
The University of Pennsylvania, which receives about $1 billion annually in federal funding, plans to dissolve DEI-related committees at its medical school, and is reviewing websites dealing with diversity and pipeline programs that bring candidates from diverse backgrounds into the medical school.
The Supreme Court decision in 2023 that schools could not consider students’ race during admissions opened up universities to lawsuits over race-based initiatives — like the Black Doctors Directory.
Goldfarb does not see a benefit to directing Black patients specifically to Black doctors. Instead, Penn should focus on improving access to the best doctors possible — regardless of their race.
“I think it’s demeaning,” he said. “They’ve racialized the decision.”
The organization has also filed complaints with the Department of Health and Human Services over race-based initiatives at Duke University Health System and Geisinger College of Health Sciences in Scranton.
A Philadelphia case study
Philadelphia’s Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium shows how improving access to diverse doctors can help address health disparities, according to its founder, Ala Stanford, a pediatric surgeon, health equity advocate, author, and professor at Penn.
Stanford spoke as an individual, not on behalf of Penn, and said she could not address the Do No Harm lawsuit.
She said she founded the Black Doctors Consortium in response to news reports that Black people in Philadelphia were being diagnosed with and dying of COVID at much higher rates than white people.
Affluent neighborhoods were more likely than low-income neighborhoods to have access to testing.
The name, she said, “was very intentional.”
“We know the health-care system has been untrustworthy in America,” Stanford said. “Because of that history, some people — not all — feel more comfortable with Black doctors.”
The group began testing thousands of people a day in neighborhoods where COVID was rapidly spreading, and when vaccines became available, it vaccinated thousands more.
By removing barriers for those who had the most trouble getting help, the group improved access for everyone, she said.