Prof Alleges Judge Judy Law School Program is Illegal
“filed a complaint with the federal Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights”
Can’t you picture Judge Judy responding to this with her typically sarcastic eyeroll?
The College Fix reports:
Judge Judy law school program is illegal, professor alleges
A law school program funded by TV jurist Judge Judy Sheindlin is in violation of federal law according to a professor who frequently files legal complaints.
Sheindlin and her daughter created and funded a scholarship program for women attending New York Law School, their alma mater.
Mark Perry, professor emeritus of economics at the University of Michigan-Flint, filed a complaint with the federal Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights and alleged that New York Law School’s Judge Judy Sheindlin Honors Program violates Title IX of federal law.
The DOE acknowledged receipt of Perry’s complaint but declined to provide an update to The Fix. Professor Perry told The Fix on July 25 that he had not received any further updates. He told The Fix “it could easily take a few months or more, sometimes a year or more, before they open an investigation.”
The College Fix did not hear back on multiple emails sent in the past two weeks to the law school’s media relations team and its Title IX coordinators, Nina Jody and Brian Kasbuza. The Fix inquired about the legality of the program.
According to the NYLS’s website, the scholarship provides “a full-tuition scholarship, a book stipend, and a 1L summer employment fellowship” for “women with excellent credentials and demonstrated financial need.” Students will also receive mentoring.
The female-only scholarship program will be given to three to four women per class, a total of ten recipients each school year.
“In this case men are a significant underrepresented minority at NYLS and women are a significant overrepresented majority of the student body, and yet it’s the female students who are being targeted with special preferences and generous funding,” Perry told The Fix via email.
The professor attributed this to “a prevalent narrative and mindset…where many people still think women need additional help, attention and resources that aren’t available on an equal or competitive basis with men.”
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Comments
Hmmm. The professor attributed this to “a prevalent narrative and mindset…where many people still think women need additional help, attention and resources that aren’t available on an equal or competitive basis with men.”
So if we changed that to The professor attributed this to “a prevalent narrative and mindset…where many people still think blacks need additional help, attention and resources that aren’t available on an equal or competitive basis with whites” to refer to “Affirmative” Action, he would file complaints?
Downtick me all you want, but, it’s good to see women getting their own demand for preferences and set-asides shoved back in their collective faces.
I am reminded of The Case of The League of Red Headed Men.
I have no problem with privately financed scholarships targeted to a specific subset of the general pop. Freedom of association – if (say) Elon Musk wants to fund a scholarship program for members of his old HS or for red-headed lesbians (because he thinks they’re hawt) or people with the family name of “Musk” good on him.
Where I think it’s currently problematic is if an institution like a university or govt entity starts one such targeted based on race or other such filter. Not impossible – it makes sense for (say) a Catholic group to exclude non-Catholics – more problematic for a (say) Protestant group to exclude Catholics.
Let a traditional Black Uni or theft NAACP sponsor scholarships for blacks (or CP or whatever the current vocabulary allows) or the Baptists to sponsor Baptists or even Musk to sponsor RHLs. Just don’t take govt money to benefit only a specific race or gender etc.
Oh, and make filers of silly lawsuits pay court costs, defenders lawyers, and possibly even a fine.
Right, this was my take. What constitutional authority does TItle IX have to decide that a privately funded scholarship program has to abide by federal diversity rules? I’ve lived in several towns that had scholarship programs limited to students from that town — who says they can’t?
Is Judge Judy really bound by Title IX? That doesn’t sound very reasonable.
This actually raises an important issue that may need serious resolution.
Any individual is free to decide to whom to give money, but is an individual free to commandeer the machinery of an educational program that is subject to Title IX to act in a discriminatory way? In other words, a donor can make these decisions almost certainly free of Title IX coverage, but can the donor involve the school in any way (“send me a list of the students and their applications and transcripts and I will decide”) or in a major way (“here are the general criteria, so you decide to which women to give the money”)?
To what degree are the numbers important? Is there a difference between a $1,000 per annum stipend and a full scholarship, and is there a difference between scholarships for, say, under 5% of the students and scholarships for all females in the class?
The overlay of whether the beneficiaries are members of a group that claims to be underrepresented or to have been discriminated against may end up being held to be an impermissible consideration this coming Supreme Court term.
I think that’s probably the basis for the complaint — individuals may discriminate but the college, by administering the scholarship, constitutes official action by an educational organization and that must comply with non-discrimination rules/laws.
It was that line of reasoning that put an end to “limited covenants” in housing that discriminated. The people who wanted to uphold the covenants argued that they were private individuals and could do as they pleased (this was before certain Fair Housing laws were passed). The Court held that by coming to the Court and asking the Court to enforce them, they were invoking official action (by the Court) and the court could not legally enforce the covenants. So, although the covenants remained, they could not be legally enforced.
If the college administering a scholarship to any degree acts as you suggest – then there’s no possibility of ANY legal scholarship that’s targeted to a subset of the general pop.
Any scholarship normally requires that the receiver not only meets the selection criteria but actually enrolls, attends classes, possibly selects a particular major, and maintains a minimum grade. The only entity that can track all that additional data is the college.