The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has sued Mercy Health, an Ohio health care system, alleging it subjected a high-performing Jewish orthopedic surgeon to unfavorable treatment and fired him because of his race and religion, shortly after the October 7 Hamas attack.
According to the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, management and staff at the system’s Northeast Ohio facilities knew that Dr. Ian Walton, who began practicing there in 2016, was Jewish. The complaint alleges that throughout his employment, even as he provided excellent medical care and exceeded productivity goals, he was subjected to antisemitic remarks and hostility: hearing Jewish people blamed for various conflicts and encountering disdain for Jewish people, their ethnicity, and their religious traditions.
Reading the complaint, one wonders how Dr. Walton lasted as long as he did. He also allegedly worked under unfavorable terms that interfered with his own medical practice—terms that were not imposed on non-Jewish physicians.
Things went from bad to worse after the 2023 Hamas massacre, when, the lawsuit says, disparaging comments “flooded” Dr. Walton’s workplace. Now he had to hear others blame the attack on “the Jews,” criticize what “the Jews” were doing in Gaza, and say “people should not care” about the Israeli hostages. He was also allegedly confronted about whether he was a practicing Jew and asked whether he had any part in the war.
At the same time, according to the complaint, Mercy Health sidelined him, excluding him from surgery-scheduling meetings and cutting his available surgical block time—all without his input or agreement.
Finally, a few weeks later, Mercy Health notified Dr. Walton that he was being fired, saying only that it was because of something “other than work performance.” When he repeatedly asked why, the lawsuit says management told him it was for “no reason.” According to the complaint, the system still needed an orthopedic physician, and his patients and duties went to non-Jewish doctors.
The EEOC alleges these practices were intentional race and religious discrimination under Title VII. It asks the court to bar further discrimination, award Dr. Walton back pay and other compensation, and impose punitive damages.
The lawsuit comes after the parties failed to reach an agreement under the agency’s conciliation process. It’s part of the EEOC’s ongoing efforts under Chair Andrea Lucas to combat religious discrimination in the workplace, including antisemitism, as we noted last week in our post on the agency’s lawsuit against a Texas ice cream maker that fired a Jewish worker who wouldn’t shave his beard.
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