A White Doctor Is Suing Find A Black Doctor, And The Anti-DEI Backlash Says Everything

A white Colorado dermatologist and a conservative legal group have filed a federal lawsuit against the creator of Find A Black Doctor, a directory that helps Black patients find Black physicians and dentists. The claim? That limiting eligibility to Black doctors is unlawful discrimination against non‑Black providers who want advertising access. Let me pause right there.

Black patients have spent generations navigating a medical system that has experimented on them, dismissed their pain, undertreated their symptoms, and made them feel unsafe. Studies confirm that medical providers more often refuse Black patients pain medication, disbelieve their symptoms, and that Black women face maternal mortality rates about 3.5 times higher than white women. A KFF survey found that many Black adults say they prepare for possible mistreatment during healthcare visits, meaning they walk into exam rooms already bracing for disrespect.

So someone builds a simple directory to help Black patients find Black doctors, and suddenly, a white dermatologist’s desire to be listed turns into a crisis.

The lawsuit, brought by Dr. Travis Morrell and the anti‑DEI group Do No Harm, claims that Find A Black Doctor “indefensibly robs some physicians of valuable advertising exposure and deprives patients of the opportunity to discover capable providers without regard to race.” That language sounds neutral, but it is not. It reframes a community resource as an act of exclusion, while ignoring the system that made the directory necessary.

Why Find A Black Doctor exists in the first place

AAMC says that in 2024, 5.3% of active physicians identified as Black or African American, while Black Americans are roughly 13% of the population. That gap alone would be enough to justify a directory. But the real issue is trust and safety. Research consistently shows that Black patients report better communication, higher satisfaction, and greater uptake of preventive care when treated by Black doctors. One study in JAMA Network Open found that a 10% increase in Black primary care physician representation was associated with a 30‑day increase in life expectancy for Black individuals. Another study by Harvard Business School and the National Bureau of Economic Research found that Black men assigned to Black doctors agreed to more preventive services, especially more invasive services, after speaking with them.

That is not because white doctors are inherently bad. It is because years of documented discrimination, racial bias in pain assessment, and cultural disconnects have left Black patients with every reason to be cautious. A directory that helps them find providers who share their lived experience is a workaround for a broken system, not an attack on white physicians.

Dr. Darien Sutton recently explained why some Black American patients may keep someone on the phone during medical visits. Hospitals and emergency rooms can feel frightening or unsafe for people of colour, he argued, especially against the backdrop of racial disparities in pain treatment, medical experimentation and research showing that some white medical students and residents falsely believed Black patients had thicker skin or less sensitive nerve endings. For Dr. Darien, a patient on speaker is not automatically disrespect. It can be protection, support and a response to a system that has not earned full trust.

@doctor.darien

This is not the first time I’ve heard this question. This responce is for all who have asked it.

♬ original sound – Doctor Darien

The anti‑DEI playbook is getting predictable

This lawsuit follows the exact same script as the attack on the Fearless Fund, which provided grants to Black women business owners. In both cases, conservative legal groups use civil rights law, originally designed to protect marginalized groups, to argue that race‑conscious efforts to address disparities are themselves discriminatory.

Do No Harm says it wants patients to discover providers “without regard to race.” That sounds lovely in theory. But in practice, ignoring race means ignoring the fact that race already affects how patients are treated. You cannot solve a problem by pretending it does not exist.

Nobody is saying only Black doctors can treat Black patients. The research does not say that. But the research does say that representation, trust, and cultural understanding can improve outcomes, especially in a system where the medical establishment has harmed Black patients for centuries. If Do No Harm really cared about patient access, it would focus on the fact that more than half of U.S. counties have no Black primary care physician at all. It would care that Black women are still dying in childbirth at alarming rates. It would care that many Black patients prepare for medical visits expecting to be insulted or dismissed. Instead, it is suing a Black doctor directory.

Final thoughts

Find A Black Doctor is not the reason healthcare is divided by race. It exists because healthcare already was. Black patients are not imagining medical racism. The research is overwhelming, and the disparities are deadly.

A white dermatologist who wants more advertising exposure is entitled to his opinion. But filing a federal lawsuit to tear down one of the few tools Black patients have to find culturally responsive care? That is not about equality. That is about treating Black survival as a threat.

The courtroom is not where this fight belongs. The real fight belongs in medical schools, in hospital boards, and in the examination rooms where medical staff still dismiss Black patients. Until that changes, directories like Find A Black Doctor will keep being necessary, no matter how many lawsuits land on the docket.