HMS Prof Files Racial Bias Suit

An Indian professor training at a Harvard teaching hospital filed a federal lawsuit last week alleging that racial discrimination has hampered his career.

Dr. Rajendra Badgaiyan, an assistant radiology professor at Harvard Medical School (HMS), said in the suit that his supervisor, Dr. Grace J. Mushrush, has made false and disparaging remarks about him, including negative comments about India. The complaint alleges that the discrimination has prevented Badgaiyan from career advancement, including receiving a fellowship and state certification.

Mushrush, who directs the University’s South Shore Psychiatry Residency Training Program at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Brockton, is targeted in another pending discrimination suit alleging that she withdrew an offer of admission to an applicant after learning the applicant was pregnant.

Badgaiyan’s suit, filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court in Boston, seeks an end to the discrimination as well as unspecified damages from Harvard, Mushrush and the secretary of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Badgaiyan wrote in an e-mail that he did not want to comment on the suit.

“It is unfortunate and painful,” he wrote. “I do not want to publicize it.”

Boston attorney Paul H. Merry, who represents Badgaiyan, said his client was forced to seek legal redress after exhausting other alternatives.

“He really didn’t have a choice, unless he decided that he was going to let go of the whole thing,” Merry said.

He added that he would be “very surprised” if his client was not open to potential settlement offers.

“I don’t think it does physicians much good to go to court very often, but I think that he really wants to practice, and he’s very concerned,” Merry said. “He’s very hopeful that this will be resolved without any further ado.”

HMS spokesman John Lacey wrote in an e-mail that the school had not yet been served with a copy of the complaint.

“Once we are, we will be looking at the matter carefully,” he wrote.

The suit says that Badgaiyan has a distinguished record: he has “been ranked first in his class; was awarded a prestigious fellowship; and published some sixty articles” on neuroscience.

The complaint alleges that Mushrush began to level unfair and unfounded criticism at Badgaiyan after he initially received “outstanding evaluations” in the program.

“Dr. Mushrush has on at least one occasion acknowledged that some of this criticism was and is unfounded,” the complaint says.

Badgaiyan also asserts in the suit that Mushrush has prevented him from advancing through training, seeing his performance evaluations, receiving a diploma with his peers, finalizing a fellowship and being certified by the state medical licensing board. The complaint says that Badgaiyan was not alone in noticing the discrimination.

“Other medical professionals of Indian and South Asian extraction...also recounted to Dr. Badgaiyan their own observations of negative remarks concerning South Asians as well,” the complaint says.

Mushrush did not respond to requests for comment.

A hospital spokeswoman said she couldn’t comment on pending litigation.

—Staff writer Stephen M. Marks can be reached at marks@fas.harvard.edu.