UCLA accused of offering race- and sex-based scholarships in new civil rights complaint
The Equal Protection Project filed a civil rights complaint against UCLA, alleging that multiple scholarships unlawfully discriminate based on race, sex, and immigration status.
UCLA’s programs include awards for Latino, Asia Pacific, and undocumented students, which EPP argues violate Title VI and Title IX protections.
A nonprofit organization has filed a civil rights complaint against the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) for allegedly offering scholarships that discriminate on the basis of race and sex.
The organization, the Equal Protection Project (EPP), filed the lawsuit on Nov. 7 with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR).
“We bring this civil rights complaint against the University of California, Los Angeles, for offering, administering, and promoting thirteen (13) scholarships that discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, and/or sex in violation of Title VI and Title IX, respectively,” the lawsuit asserts.
One award — the “UCLA Latino Alumni Association Endowed Alumni Scholarship” — explicitly states on UCLA’s website that it is intended for “incoming LatinX freshmen and transfer students.” Similarly, another tuition discount is specifically offered to Asian Pacific students.
“It is unfortunate but not unexpected that race- and sex-based discriminatory scholarships exist at a well-known public university such as UCLA,” the founder of the EPP, William Jacobson, told Campus Reform. “Critical Race Theory and its offshoots like Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, are deeply embedded in campus culture throughout the nation.”
“Higher education needs to focus on students as individuals rather than categorizing students based on identity groups,” Jacobson concluded in his statement to Campus Reform. Jacobson is a professor at Cornell Law School.
Jacobson calls upon race- and sex-based barriers to be purged from any university use, whether it be in admissions, scholarships, or any other educational opportunities.
EPP’s complaint also identified that UCLA offers a scholarship specifically for undocumented students.
“The UCLA Undocumented Alumni Association Scholarship fund was established in May 2019 to award scholarships through the UCLA Office of Financial Aid to undocumented undergraduate students under current law through the Alumni Scholarships Program,” the scholarship page explains.
UCLA’s support for illegal alien students is nothing new in California. Earlier this month, the state’s Supreme Court declined to review a ruling that found the University of California’s employment ban on undocumented students discriminatory, forcing the system to reconsider policies restricting on-campus jobs for illegal immigrants.
This isn’t the first lawsuit that EPP has filed alleging race- or sex-based discrimination at major universities. This year, the organization has filed suits against Yale University, the University of Richmond, Florida State University, the University of Louisville, and others.
According to its website, the Equal Protection Project, a Legal Insurrection Foundation initiative, promotes equal treatment regardless of race, opposes all forms of racism, and conducts national research on free speech and critical race theory in education.
Race-based discrimination by government entities has been held to violate the U.S. Constitution for more than two years. In the 2023 case of Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, the Supreme Court ruled that Harvard and UNC’s race-conscious admissions policies violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Campus Reform has contacted the UCLA for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
