Planned Parenthood of Illinois agrees to pay $500,000 over allegations of discrimination against white employees

Lisa Schencker, Chicago Tribune on Mar 19, 2026

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CHICAGO — Planned Parenthood of Illinois has agreed to pay $500,000 following an investigation by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission into allegations that its white employees faced harassment and discrimination, according to the federal agency.

The EEOC investigated charges made by multiple employees and found “reasonable cause to believe Planned Parenthood engaged in unlawful discrimination and harassment against white employees,” according to the EEOC.

According to the EEOC’s reasonable cause findings, a Planned Parenthood of Illinois manager made “racially harassing statements.”

Planned Parenthood of Illinois also required workers to attend DEI-related training sessions “which involved repeated harassing and derogatory statements targeting white employees, including that they ‘are White and do not feel racism the same way non-White patients feel,’ and that ‘white supremacy is exerted at every level of oppression (individual, interpersonal, organizational, and societal),’” according to the EEOC.

Staff were required to regularly attend the DEI training sessions or “affinity caucuses” that were racially segregated, according to the EEOC. Planned Parenthood of Illinois also gave Black employees greater access to time off than white workers, the EEOC alleged.

Planned Parenthood of Illinois “took action to remove the manager responsible for the misconduct uncovered by the investigation,” according to the EEOC.

“Segregating employees by race violates the core promise of our nation’s civil rights laws,” said EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas in a news release. “Title VII guarantees equal treatment for every employee and prohibits race discrimination in America’s workplaces. Those protections equally apply to white workers.”

Planned Parenthood of Illinois President and CEO Adrienne White-Faines said in a statement Thursday that the EEOC informed the organization that it was the “subject of a complaint regarding workplace trainings and practices under prior leadership of the organization.”

“In the time since this complaint was filed, and since I came on board as President and CEO in 2025, I have overseen significant change at the organization, including across the leadership team,” White-Faines said. “PPIL has now come to an agreement with the EEOC about a path forward that will allow us to put this matter behind us and continue providing critical health care services to our valued patients from Illinois and across the country.”

The agreement comes amid the Trump administration’s ongoing battle against diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives across the country.

It also follows attempts at the federal level to pull funding from Planned Parenthood organizations and to prohibit some of the care they provide. The so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law in July, included a provision barring federal Medicaid dollars from going to certain reproductive health care providers that perform abortions, including Planned Parenthood, for a year— a provision that’s being challenged in court.

Although the loss of Medicaid funding has “caused tremendous damage” across the country, “In Illinois, we are fortunate that the State committed to reimburse (Planned Parenthood of Illinois) for care to our Medicaid patients, enabling us to continue to expand access, welcome new patients, and deliver compassionate, trusted, high‑quality health care all patients need and deserve,” White-Faines said in a statement Thursday.

Planned Parenthood of Illinois offers a range of services across its 13 health centers, including medication and procedural abortion, birth control, gender-affirming care, testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections and cancer screenings. It also offers, through its app, birth control, urinary tract infection treatment, at-home sexually transmitted infection testing, abortion medication and emergency contraception.