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UT Southwestern Medical Center to Pay $900K to Resolve Alleged Systemic Racial Hiring Discrimination

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The U.S. Department of Labor today announced (press release) that the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (UTSMC) has agreed to pay $900,000 in back wages and interest to resolve alleged systemic racial hiring discrimination affecting 6,123 Black applicants at the center’s Dallas facility.

In addition to the back wages and interest, UTSMC will make 132 job offers to the affected job applicants and ensure its hiring policies and procedures do not discriminate. UTSMC will also provide training to all managers, supervisors and other company officials in the hiring process. 

The announcement says that a routine compliance evaluation by the department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs found the research hospital’s hiring practices allegedly discriminated against Black applicants from Aug. 24, 2016, through Aug. 24, 2018, in violation of Executive Order 11246, which prohibits federal contractors from discriminating in employment based on race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or national origin. 

UTSMC employs about 23,000 people and provides medical education, scientific training and clinical care. It currently has contracts to provide services to the Department of Veterans Affairs and has held more than $90 million in federal contracts since 2013, the announcement added.