EPP files OCR complaint over program to promote 'historically underrepresented' groups in STEM
A civil rights group has filed a complaint against four Pennsylvania universities for alleged discrimination due to their involvement in the Keystone Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation program.
The Equal Protection Project officially filed the complaint with the Office for Civil Rights on Jan. 28 against the Universities of East Stroudsburg, Millersville, Slippery Rock and West Chester.
The Equal Protection Project (EPP) has filed a civil rights complaint against four Pennsylvania universities for alleged discrimination due to their involvement in the Keystone Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation program.
EPP officially filed the complaint with the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) on Jan. 28 against the Universities of East Stroudsburg, Millersville, Slippery Rock, and West Chester. The organization argues that the program, funded by the National Science Foundation to increase the total of “historically underrepresented” groups in the STEM fields, violates both the 14th Amendment and Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
[RELATED: Civil rights group challenges university mentoring program for excluding white students]
”The Keystone LSAMP Alliance program violates Title VI because it conditions eligibility for participation on a student’s race and ethnicity,” EPP writes in its complaint. ”And, because the Alliance Members are public universities, their promotion and administration of this discriminatory program also violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”
”The ineligibility of white, Asian, and other students from the Keystone LSAMP Alliance program makes the program underinclusive, since the racial restriction is arbitrary and excludes swaths of candidates who could benefit from the programs but who are not permitted to apply due to their race and skin color,” the group continues.
EPP requests that OCR launch an investigation into the program, and ultimately ensure that it aligns with the U.S. Constitution, as well as federal civil rights laws. The group also seeks for OCR to ”impose such remedial relief as the law permits for the benefit of those who have been illegally excluded from the Keystone LSAMP Alliance program based on discriminatory criteria.”
In a statement provided to Campus Reform, EPP Founder William Jacobson reinforced the organization’s view that “[r]acial discrimination is wrong and unlawful no matter which group is targeted or benefits.”
”After the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admission, it is clear that discriminating on the basis of race to achieve diversity is not lawful and violates, among other things, students’ 14th Amendment right to equal protection of the laws,” Jacobson said. “As Chief Justice Roberts wrote in the majority opinion, ‘eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.’”
Campus Reform has contacted the Universities of East Stroudsburg, Millersville, Slippery Rock, and West Chester for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.