SEATTLE — A civil trial is underway this week to hear arguments about whether Seattle Children’s hospital racially discriminated against the former medical director of its Odessa Brown Children’s Clinic.
Dr. Benjamin Danielson, who led the clinic for over two decades and is a longtime advocate for increasing health care access for marginalized communities, sued the hospital system in King County Superior Court last year after resigning in November 2020. In the complaint, Danielson alleged the hospital cultivated a racially hostile work environment and engaged in racially discriminatory practices against its staff and patients.
He recounted his experience of needing to be “twice as good” as his white counterparts, a reality he said other colleagues of color also faced. He highlighted what he called the hospital’s discriminatory treatment of patients of color, such as the disproportionate use of security against Black patients, and alleged a prominent hospital administrator used a racial slur for Black people years ago in reference to him.
He also alleged that when he and others expressed concerns that money raised to expand the clinic’s services and build a second site were not being spent on the clinic, hospital leaders retaliated against Danielson and launched an investigation into his leadership. The clinic opened its second site in Othello in 2022.
Attorneys for Seattle Children’s, however, argue that Danielson left not because of a hostile work environment or retaliation, but because he was disappointed he didn’t have “complete autonomy” over the clinic’s funds and decisions while the hospital was making financial plans to build a second clinic.
“It is about Dr. Danielson’s angry feelings and bruised ego after SCH dared to investigate claims made by OBCC employees against him, and SCH made legitimate and reasonable business decisions (that he disagreed with) on how OBCC funding should be used,” attorneys wrote in the trial brief.
In the wake of Danielson’s resignation and public pressure, Seattle Children’s hired former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s law firm to conduct an independent investigation. That investigation found that while Seattle Children’s had improved racial and ethnic diversity of its workforce, “racial disparities persist in leadership positions, promotions and voluntary terminations.”
In a statement, a Seattle Children’s spokesperson said the hospital is “disappointed (Danielson) has chosen to pursue the matter in court and will vigorously dispute the allegations being made during trial proceedings.”
“Seattle Children’s cannot allow anything to eclipse the important work required of us to deliver on our mission and serve patients and families,” the statement said.
Attorneys made their opening arguments in the trial on Monday. In the coming weeks, witnesses and attorneys for Danielson and for Seattle Children’s will provide contrasting accounts around the hospital’s workplace culture, its treatment of patients, the clinic’s expansion, and key moments between Danielson and hospital leadership.
Most cases of racial discrimination against an employer are settled out of court or otherwise never make it to trial.
Allegations against the hospital
In court documents, Danielson argued that institutional racism pervaded the hospital system, running counter to the clinic’s mission of advancing racial equity in health care. The clinic primarily serves families of color and low-income families.
Danielson alleged that Dr. Jim Hendricks, president of Seattle Children’s Research Institute, called him a racial slur in 2009, and the hospital failed to address the incident. He said he also witnessed racially discriminatory treatment of colleagues and patients of color.
The hospital has been aware of its racially discriminatory practices since at least 2012, he alleged, when Seattle Children’s hospital issued an internal report showing that it called security on patients and families of color twice as often as it did for white patients and families.
Those issues were swept under the rug, Danielson alleged, “just as it had done when it failed to properly investigate and respond to the allegation about the racial slur,” according to his trial brief. The independent investigation also found the hospital “did not adequately investigate or address” the incident.
According to the hospital, the health system conducted interviews with employees, including Hendricks, who “vehemently denied ever using a racial slur towards Dr. Danielson or any other SCH employee.” No one corroborated the allegation, the hospital’s trial brief stated. Hendricks was forced to resign in 2021 after Danielson’s allegations of the incident publicly surfaced.
Some staff members at Seattle Children’s have corroborated Danielson’s account of the hospital’s treatment of patients and staff members of color.
In a declaration filed in court in September, Dr. Corrie Anderson, who started in 2001 at Seattle Children’s as the director of pain management services, said he experienced racism “from my first days at SCH.”
Anderson alleged he was frequently met with resistance and opposition, alleging that some of his colleagues “seemed to have a problem with having a Black doctor as a superior,” he wrote in his declaration.
“As the head administrator I was directly confronted with people on the service hostile to my leadership, and heard from others on the service that many people were making negative comments about me,” he wrote.
Anderson also alleged he saw Black patients treated differently because of their race numerous times, such as nurses calling security after hearing a Black patient’s raised voice.
When some patients with sickle cell disease, a blood disorder that can cause severe pain and that overwhelmingly affects Black people, requested and received pain medication, they would sometimes fall asleep or have slurred speech. Staff would judge these patients as “addicts,” he alleged, or try to restrict their pain medication.
Anderson, who resigned from his director role in 2007, is still employed at the hospital as a staff anesthesiologist and is the most senior faculty member without an administrative role.
Complaints against Danielson
Attorneys for Seattle Children’s said the hospital launched its investigation into Danielson in spring 2020 after receiving complaints from staff.
The hospital first received notice of an alleged HIPAA violation after two staff members complained that Danielson disclosed private medical information with others, attorneys wrote. Danielson said he had discussed the employees’ COVID diagnosis only as part of the clinic’s contact-tracing measures to slow the spread of the virus.
Around the same time, the hospital received a second complaint from a different employee that Danielson had allegedly retaliated against her and treated other Black female clinic staff members less favorably, according to the hospital’s trial brief.
The internal investigation found Danielson had violated policy when he disclosed personal health information, and “partially substantiated the allegation of retaliation,” according to the hospital’s trial brief. It did not substantiate allegations that he treated women of color less favorably.
“On the basis of these findings — and these findings alone — SCH and UW determined Plaintiff was not living up to the expectations of his leadership position as Senior Medical Director at OBCC,” the hospital’s trial brief said.
The hospital demanded he undergo a “360 review and training” and imposed administrative changes to his role, Danielson said. The hospital said he was offered the opportunity to work with an executive coach, but he rejected the coaching and “flatly refused to allow his peers and subordinates to evaluate him.”
“Ultimately, the experience helped Dr. Danielson realize that he no longer could change SCH from the inside,” attorneys for Danielson wrote in their trial brief. He resigned in November 2020.
The children’s clinic, founded more than 50 years ago, is named after community organizer Odessa Brown, who advocated for quality health care for children in the Central District and called attention to the disparate treatment and health outcomes Black people face.
Danielson is not seeking economic damages in the form of back pay or front pay, but noneconomic damages to compensate him “for the harms he endured as a result of the hostile work environment and retaliation (including) emotional distress, humiliation, personal indignity, anxiety, and disillusionment, both past and future for each type of harm,” according to his trial brief.
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