UT Southwestern ordered to pay Egyptian-born doctor $3.6 million for discrimination, retaliation
UT Southwestern Medical Center should pay more than $3.6 million to a doctor who said he faced discrimination and retaliation after resisting pressure to commit billing fraud, a federal jury decided Wednesday.
The jury took only about an hour to put a price tag on the racial and religious persecution it concluded that the Egyptian-born Muslim suffered.
UT Southwestern, which portrays itself as a world-class institution that prizes diversity, denied mistreating AIDS clinician Naiel Nassar and quickly vowed to appeal.
“We are greatly disappointed by the jury’s decision and do not believe it reflects the fairness with which UT Southwestern approached Dr. Nassar’s employment,” the university said a public statement.
Nassar, a U.S. citizen, traced his problems to 2004, when UT Southwestern made Dr. Beth Levine chief of infectious disease medicine. She drove him to quit by 2006, Nassar said in a 2008 lawsuit.
Levine wanted Nassar to bill insurers for some of his services, “which is illegal because Dr. Nassar’s salary was fully funded by a federal grant,” the lawsuit alleged. “If UTSW were allowed to bill for the salaried position of one of its professors that is fully funded by the taxpayers, then UTSW would be, as the saying goes, ‘double dipping.’ ”
Levine told Nassar that she thought people from the Middle East were lazy and questioned his direct supervisor about his productivity, the suit said. Questions allegedly included “Is he really working?” and “Is he billing enough?”
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