(The Center Square) – After a lawsuit, the University of Washington renamed its racially-segregated “BIPOC Physicians Directory” to “MD Connections Directory” and opened the resource to all races.
“The University of Washington School of Medicine (UWSOM) has removed race-based restrictions from a physician networking directory after Do No Harm sued the program for racial discrimination,” a news release from Do No Harm, which brought the lawsuit, said.
Do No Harm is a group of “physicians, nurses, medical students, patients, and policymakers focused on keeping identity politics out of medical education, research, and clinical practice,” according to its website. It works to counteract what it calls “divisive” medical trends such as DEI and youth-focused gender ideology.
“Originally, only ‘Black, indigenous and people of color’ (BIPOC) students and physicians were eligible to participate in UWSOM’s Physicians Directory, a database of physicians that students could use for career advice,” Do No Harm’s release stated.
Indeed, the school’s BIPOC resource stated it was “a directory where BIPOC students could easily talk to physicians with identities similar to their own to find advice and answers to their questions,” according to its webpage.
BIPOC includes those who are “Black/African Diaspora, Native American/Indigenous, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, Asian, Latine/Latinx, Middle Eastern, and North African,” according to the directory.
Such alleged discrimination by a public university prompted Do No Harm to file a lawsuit on Oct. 15, 2024, claiming UWSOM’s “directory violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act.”
In response to the lawsuit, UWSOM’s directory is now called “MD Connections,” and is available to all races, Do No Harm says.
MD Connections states it is “open to all” and possesses a “goal of supporting the first-generation, and other students who seek connections with physicians with identities and interests similar to their own.”
“In light of these changes, Do No Harm has agreed to settle with UWSOM, and the case will be dismissed,” Do No Harm said.
When reached for comment, UW Medicine spokeswoman Susan Gregg told The Center Square that “the MD Connections directory has always been accessible to all UW Medicine medical students and to physicians across the country.”
“In December, updates to the website were made to ensure clarity of the program’s scope, including renaming the directory to MD Connections to ensure its inclusivity and purpose is clear,” Gregg said.
“UW Medicine remains deeply committed to promoting equity, fostering a welcoming environment for all and ensuring we meet the needs of the patients and communities we serve,” Gregg said.
The UW School of Medicine says on its website that it has a “commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
Do No Harm’s chairman Dr. Stanley Goldfarb said in the group’s release: “We are pleased that UWSOM responded to our lawsuit by removing its discriminatory policies that barred certain students from career opportunities on the basis of race.”
In another release, Goldfarb said that “putting racial roadblocks on medical students making the critical career choice of a residency program and blocking white doctors from mentoring medical students is unethical and illegal.”
“UWSOM should be ensuring that its students are well-trained and best able to serve patients,” Goldfarb said.