Non-Whites Only U. Minnesota Summer Research Program Challenged By Equal Protection Project
“We all thought racial segregation in education as government policy ended with Brown v. Bd. of Education, but unfortunately it has been reborn under the umbrella of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion…. U. Minnesota needs to stop treating students differently based on skin color…. Federal funding for U. Minnesota needs to be reevaluated”
The University of Minnesota has a summer internship program called the Multicultural Summer Research Opportunities Program (“MSROP”) – a 10-week summer research program for undergraduate students that is only available to non-white applicants.
The program is promoted on the university’s website in multiple places as a featured program:
The racial guidelines are explicit and unambiguous – no white students allowed, you must “Identify as a Student of Color or Native American.”
As part of the application process, students are required to include “demographic information”:
The university also has promoted the program on its Instagram account:
“applications are open for the 2023 Multicultural Summer Research Opportunities Program (MSROP). MSROP is an intensive 10 week summer program in which undergraduate students of color work full-time with a faculty mentor on a research project. The cohort-based program includes a series of seminars preparing students for graduate school and developing research skills. Stipended opportunity of $6000. Deadline for Applications is March 3rd”
The program provides for a $6000 payment to each participant:
“Each participant will receive a $6,000 stipend for personal and research expenses. An additional research stipend is assigned to the faculty mentor for use by the student.
The personal stipend is received in installments over the ten-week period into the scholar’s student account and is tied to competion of program requirements.”
EPP Complaint
The Equal Protection Project (EqualProtect.org) of the Legal Insurrection Foundation has filed a complaint with the Office of Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education challenging the program (full complaint embedded at bottom of this post). The Complaint provides, among other things:
This is a federal civil rights complaint pursuant to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) discrimination complaint resolution procedures. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000d-1; 34 C.F.R. §§ 100.7, 100.8, and 100.9.
We write on behalf of the Equal Protection Project (“EPP”) of the Legal Insurrection Foundation, a non-profit that, among other things, seeks to ensure equal protection under the law and non-discrimination by the government, and that opposes racial discrimination in any form.We bring this civil rights complaint against the University of Minnesota (“UMN”), a public institution, for its past, present, ongoing, and planned future practice of discriminating on the basis of race, color and national origin in its Multicultural Summer Research Opportunities Program (“MSROP”) – a 10-week summer research program for undergraduate students that is only available to non-white applicants.
The MSROP violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VI”), 42 U.S.C. § 2000d, et seq., and its implementing regulations at 28 C.F.R. Part 100. It also violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.1 “It is a sordid business, this divvying us up by race.” League of United Latin Am. Citizens v. Perry, 548 U.S. 399 (2006) (Roberts, C.J., dissenting). Nowhere is that more true than here.
The OCR should order that UMN’s discriminatory practices be discontinued immediately and take all necessary enforcement action to effectuate that order. This includes, if necessary, imposing fines, initiating administrative proceedings to suspend, terminate, or refuse to grant or continue federal financial assistance, and referring the case to the Department of Justice for judicial proceedings to enforce the rights of the United States.
* * *
Conclusion
The University of Minnesota is engaging in unlawful discrimination through the Multicultural Summer Research Opportunities Program. Racial discrimination by a public institution is illegal regardless of which race suffers. Discrimination against white applicants is just as unlawful as discrimination against black or other non-white applicants. There is no good form of racial discrimination. Because UMN receives federal funding, OCR had the power and obligation to make UMN stop and to impose whatever remedial relief is necessary.
“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” Parents Involved in Cmty. Sch., 551 U.S. at 748. OCR should promptly investigate the allegations in this complaint and take the necessary enforcement action to end UMN’s ongoing unlawful policies and practices. This includes, if necessary, imposing fines, initiating administrative proceedings to suspend, terminate, or refuse to grant or continue federal financial assistance, and referring the case to the Department of Justice for judicial proceedings to enforce the rights of the United States under federal law.
Fox News digital has picked up the story.
As of this writing it is one of the top trending stories on the homepage with over 5000 comments and growing fast:
From the Fox News article:
The Equal Protection Project of the Legal Insurrection Foundation is calling for the University of Minnesota (UMN) to change its application process and open its summer internship programs to all students regardless of skin color.
“The U. Minnesota segregated summer program is inexcusable, and it’s shocking that a major university would so openly make educational opportunities open only to students of a certain skin color,” Bill Jacobson, president of the Equal Protection Project (EPP), told Fox News Digital. “EqualProtect.org calls on the university immediately to open-up the summer program to students of all races, ethnicities, and skin colors.”
“There is no good form of racial discrimination. Depriving white students of educational opportunities does not promote racial or any other form of justice,” Jacobson continued. “U. Minnesota’s conduct is inexcusable.” ….
“We urge the U.S. Department of Education to fully investigate how pervasive segregationist practices are at U. Minnesota. Federal funding should not be used to promote educational opportunities restricted by skin color,” Jacobson told Fox News Digital. “Federal funding for U. Minnesota needs to be reevaluated.” ….
“We all thought racial segregation in education as government policy ended with Brown v. Bd. of Education, but unfortunately it has been reborn under the umbrella of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” Jacobson said. “Whatever you call it, it’s immoral and illegal, and U. Minnesota needs to stop treating students differently based on skin color.”
“At EqualProtect.org we believe that the remedy for racism can never be more racism, it’s equal treatment of all persons without regard to race,” Jacobson continued. “Unfortunately, U. Minnesota appears to think that pitting students against each other based on race by making educational opportunities available based on skin color is the answer, but that just compounds the problems.”
As of now I’m scheduled to be on Fox and Friends at 8:30 a.m. Eastern on Monday, May 22, 2023, to talk about this story.
At EPP we will continue to fight against discrimination done in the name of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. You can view our efforts in the two months since launch at our EPP News Page.
We are a small organization going up against powerful and wealthy government and private institutions devoted to DEI discrimination. Donations are greatly needed and appreciated.
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Comments
Diversity is Inequitable, and Exclusive (DIEversity)
That said, diversity of individuals, minority of one. #HateLovesAbortion
What’s funny is they didn’t think anything of it—it didn’t even cross their minds that discriminating against white people was wrong. They thought nobody would care.
I would slightly modify that to- they don’t care whether or not anyone cares.
Sad. Also, true. Sad.
Racism, pure and simple. Just as racist as assuming that minorities can’t fend for themselves and need the guiding hand of well meaning leftists to achieve anything in their lives.
Race baiting poverty pimps, then and now.
Good work. This is one reason I financially support LI.
Can’t anybody claim to be trans-colored and get into the program that way? After all, the prevailing evolutionary hypothesis is that all humans originated in Africa, so we’re all Afro-Americans. It is that some of us are at the far end of the melanin spectrum due to a birth defect. Do you want to hold our a having a birth defect against us? If you do, wouldn’t you be violating a regulation about discriminating against handicapped individuals?
As a super-intelligent shade of blue, do I count as trans-colored?
Oh, wait, I know this one. I am if I think I am. Also Tinkerbelle will live if we all believe hard enough.
Carry on.
Knowing how these people think, they’ve learned and will learn nothing. In their hive minds, they are morally sacrosanct, and LI Foundation is nothing but a white supremacist hate group.
The virtue-signalers. How is it such virtuous people are potty-mouthed, racist criminals? They hate all that is good. How is that virtuous?
Their virtue comes from a place of ‘certainty’ that they are righteous beyond equal. A lawsuit brought against them is a mark of honor especially by a conservative group is icing on the cake for them. Thinking normally about their motives will only leave you frustrated.
I first misread that as “virus-signalers.” Too funny.
I have a suspicious mole on my behind. Can I apply in the hopes that I will need to show that I am bona fide. Heck, I’ll demonstrate even if I don’t apply.
I understand Ace Hardware is doing the color checking.
I am honor bound to stipulate that Ace Hardware does some damn fine color checking. They have matched my samples perfectly 100% of the time. If only all businesses.
Someone should get a friendly news source (other than LI) to ask questions of the Department of Education about the legality of blatant exclusion based upon race and hang them out to dry for not answering if they don’t.
If they won’t due to it being a current case, the next step should be to ask them about the hundred or so cases adjudicated in favor of Professor Perry.
So now I’m wondering how U. Minnesota does on women’s sports teams.
Do they have any that are “only available” to biological women?
Until educrats are held personally liable for illegal racist conduct this sort of thing will continue. They know it’s illegal and don’t care because they know they will get away with it much of the time and that there are no personal consequences when they get caught.
The University of Minnesota is engaging in unlawful discrimination
A main pillar of Democrat Party governance is its contortion expressed in its concept and execution of the rule of law.
That enables its acolytes to use a two-headed approach to law enforcement, as was clearly revealed in the Clinton-Obama-Biden-Deep State abuse of its law enforcement tools to throw all the resources of the State into the opposition to, and the ultimate reversal of the presidential vote of November 2016.
In comparison, the U of Minnesota’s hope to junk the Civil Rights Act and the 14th Amendment in one swell foop this summer is peanuts.
Apparently, the Democrat greed for power is on a course to obliterate the common-law concept of equality before the law (well, that was an Anglo-Saxon concept, wasn’t it?) in order to rule by the loudmouthed precepts of the Mob of the Day.
Keep your powder dry.
Berkeley’s – Black Studies Department will hold a separate graduation ceremony just for Blacks
The program is only opened to Native Americans and People of Color. Well “White” is a color so we white folks should be eligible for admission.
And what if I identify as a “Native American” as one of our esteemed U S Senators did (does) ?
Weird to me how futility never figures in on these schemes. Sure, redress past griveances, leveling the scales. How ya gonna do that?
Discrimination to redress past discrimination is likely to get hijacked by the discriminators — they’re good at it. Machinery to redress imbalance of power and access is gonna get used by … people with power and access, one suspects. Even if we could honerable, honestly organize the attempt, what functionary is smart, informed, and moral enough to do it cleanly, on target.
It’s futile on the face, and as shown in past attempts. Calibrating to finely discriminated “fairness” *in siimple voting access* got us Jim Crow.
As in finance, complexity leads inevitably to fraud. Rule of thumb: if there’s a chance for shenanigans, there will be shenanigans, so just call shenanigans.
Meanwhile, “equal protection” is simple enough to be applied, and clean up more trouble than it causes.
More likely than not, all of the spots were filled by non-whites before the complaint was filed.
(Complaint was filed after the decision date to identify who would be participants.)
It appears that the program will run this summer without any whites.