SUNY Buffalo Medical School Youth Program Racial Preferences Challenged By Equal Protection Project
If you check “White” or “Asian/Pacific Islander” you need to show you were “economically disadvantaged,” but if you are “Black/African-American” or “American Indian/Alaska Native” or “Hispanic/Latino” you are presumed eligible. The Jacobs School of Medicine and the rest of the SUNY system need to stop discriminating on the basis of race and color: “EqualProtect.org is willing to assist SUNY in an Equality Audit without charge”
The Equal Protection Project (EqualProtect.org) of the Legal Insurrection Foundation has challenged numerous racially discriminatory programs done in the name of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, including two at State University of New York campuses:
- SUNY Albany Participation In Blacks-Only Public Library Fellowship Results In Civil Rights Complaint By Equal Protection Project
- SUNY Buffalo Law School Program Racial Preference For “Students of Color” Challenged By Equal Protection Project
Based on a tip from a reader, we have now challenged a discriminatory program at the Jacobs School of Medicine at SUNY-Buffalo.
Our Civil Rights Complaint (full embed at bottom of this post) filed with the Office of Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education provides, in part:
We bring this civil rights complaint against the State University of New York at Buffalo (“UB”), a public institution, and the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo (“UB Jacobs”) for creating, supporting, and promoting two separate but related programs that engage in invidious discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin: 1) its year-round Medical Science Technology Entry Program (“Medical Science STEP”) for high school students; and 2) its Middle School Summer Enrichment Program for 7th and 8th graders (“Middle School STEP”) (collectively “UB Medical STEP”). The UB Medical STEP programs impermissibly give admission preference to high school and middle school students, respectively, who identify as “Black/African-American,” “American Indian/Alaska Native” and “Hispanic/ Latino.”
UB’s creation, ongoing sponsorship and active promotion of the UB Medical STEP programs that explicitly give admissions preference based on race and skin color violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution as well as Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VI”) and its implementing regulations. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000d et seq.; 28 C.F.R. Part 100; see also Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 244, 276 n.23 (2003) (“We have explained that discrimination that violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment committed by an institution that accepts federal funds also constitutes a violation of Title VI.”).
The unlawfulness of such racial preferences in admissions was confirmed recently by the United States Supreme Court in Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harv. Coll., 2023 U.S. LEXIS 2791 (2023). There, the Court declared that “[e]liminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it …. The guarantee of equal protection cannot mean one thing when applied to one individual and something else when applied to a person of another color. If both are not accorded the same protection, then it is not equal.” Id. at 34 (cleaned up). “Distinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry [and race] are by their very nature odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality.” Id. at 35 (citation omitted).
OCR should investigate the blatantly discriminatory UB Medical STEP programs and the circumstances under which they were created, promoted, and approved, take all appropriate action to end such discriminatory practices and impose remedial relief. 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.
As seen in the screenshot from the application form, there is nothing subtle about the discriminatory treatment.
The applications forms have racial/ethnic boxes to check. If you check “White” or “Asian/Pacific Islander” you need to show you were “economically disadvantaged,” but if you are “Black/African-American” or “American Indian/Alaska Native” or “Hispanic/Latino” you are presumed eligible.
Fox News has picked up the story:
An advocacy group has filed a federal civil-rights complaint against the State University of New York’s Buffalo School of Medicine for running two separate summer programs that gives preference to non-White students and requires White students to prove that they are either “economically disadvantaged or historically underrepresented.”
State University of New York’s (SUNY’s) Buffalo School of Medicine Medical Science Technology Entry Program (STEP) for high school students; and its Middle School Summer Enrichment Program for 7th and 8th graders give preferential treatment to high school and middle school students who identify as “Black/African-American,” “American Indian/Alaska Native” and “Hispanic/ Latino.” …
In a July 25 complaint, the Equal Protection Project (EPP) told the U.S. Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights that the racial preference program violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment as well as Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
“SUNY Buffalo Jacobs School of Medicine is a quality institution that has strong anti-discrimination policies consistent with legal requirements. SUNY Buffalo should live up to its own standards and the law and stop treating people differently based on race and color,” William Jacobson, president of the EPP, told Fox News Digital….
Jacobson said that the program is teaching the younger generation that “treating people differently based on race and color is acceptable.”
“By implementing racially discriminatory policies with regard to high school and middle school student programs, SUNY Buffalo is doing damage beyond the institution,” Jacobson said. “It is teaching youth that treating people differently based on race and color is acceptable.”
“But such discrimination never is acceptable, and SUNY Buffalo needs to lead by example,” Jacobson continued….
“The Equal Protection Project calls upon SUNY to conduct a system-wide Equality Audit to identify all programming that discriminates on the basis of race and color, and to eliminate those practices,” Jacobson said. “As the Supreme Court recently ruled, ‘Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.'”
“EqualProtect.org is willing to assist SUNY in an Equality Audit without charge,” Jacobson added.
The New York Post also covered the story:
A self-described anti-racism group has filed a federal civil-rights complaint against the State University of New York’s Buffalo of Medicine for running a science prep program that gives preference to “historically underrepresented” students over whites and Asians.
The complaint centers on SUNY Buffalo Med Schools’ year-round Medical Science Technology Entry Program for high school students and its Middle School Summer Enrichment Program for 7th and 8th graders.
The programs give admission preference to high school and middle school students who identify as “Black/African-American,” “American Indian/Alaska Native,” and “Hispanic/ Latino.”
“It is teaching youth that treating people differently based on race and color is acceptable. But such discrimination never is acceptable, and SUNY Buffalo needs to lead by example,” said William Jacobson, founder of the Equal Protection Project of the Legal Insurrection Foundation….
EPP has recently filed lawsuits against SUNY’s Buffalo Law School and Albany U. campus for running or sponsoring race-based programs limited to students of color.
The Daily Caller focused on our offer of help in conducting an “Equality Audit” (as opposed to an “Equity Audit”):
The Equal Protection Project previously filed a complaint against SUNY Buffalo’s School of Law for an undergraduate summer program that similarly gives preferences “based on race and skin color” days before the Supreme Court’s affirmative action decision in June.
“The racial discrimination problem appears to go beyond SUNY Buffalo, as SUNY Albany helped create and promote a library internship through the Albany Public Library open only to blacks,” Jacobson said. “The Equal Protection Project (EqualProtect.org) calls upon SUNY to conduct a system-wide Equality Audit to identify all programming that discriminates on the basis of race and color, and to eliminate those practices.”
“As the Supreme Court recently ruled, ‘Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.’” Jacobson continued. “EqualProtect.org is willing to assist SUNY in an Equality Audit without charge.”
EPP is ramping up its activities now that the U.S. Supreme Court has resolved, once and for all, that the goal of diversity is not a compelling government interest that would justify using race a factor in admission, much less as a bright line discriminatory barrier.
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Comments
Great job, Professor Jacobson and team, holding schools’ feet to the fire with regard to their brazenly illegal and offensive racial discrimination.
The not so soft bigotry of low income expectations.
Naturally, all whites and Asians are rich, and all blacks and Latinos are poor…if you are a racist Democrat.
I have it on good authority that poor kids are just as smart as white kids.
Agreed, which is why merit should be the only qualifier.
We need to encourage everyone to choose OTHER or simply leave it blank.
It’s one thing for US to self identify, it’s totally different if they are placed in a position where they must ask.
“Why do you believe I am a white cis male?”
I’ll show you my 23&Me when I see everyone else’s. Even if I show you my genitalia your website says that doesn’t determine gender. Does everyone else need to disclose their past and future sexual partners? Forcing me to declare my pronouns is sexist.
I am other “
Yeah, well, I just filled out another job application, and while there is an “I do not choose to identify as a certain race” option, the directions say that the administrators will “use other methods including observation” to determine your race.
So you can’t assume gender, but you sure can assume race.
Most of us are not 100% anything DNA wise.
I would wimp out of I thought I would get the job anyway.
But what I would like to do is approach HR and ask how do I answer truthfully but not disclose the infidelity in my family history?
Who’d want to go to school in Buffalo anyway??? Can you say “Lake Effect”?
I can say “Lake Effect,” but then I start to shiver and cry. 😉 Was it 77 or 78?
An appropriate response to such a question posed during an interview might be, “Why do I look like I need help instead of qualifying objectively? Either I can do the work or I cant. Try me.” The answer might be interesting.
.
Reverse discrimination is just as odious as any other form of discrimination. One should be judged on their merits, not their ethnicity or skin color. Anyone of any race or skin color can be discriminatory, not just “White people”. These discriminatory practices are against Civil Rights Laws and should be ALWAYS challenged in court, even if it’s this DemoKKKRAT LIEberal government practicing said discrimination.
you need to show you were “economically disadvantaged,”
Wouldn’t it be quaint if education institutions looked to calibrate for actual burdens, vs. indicators that they deny so vocally are burdens?
One might hope institutions, or The Apparatus writ large would effectively correct for imbalances, tho the results of their many explicit programs doing just this suggest it’s impossible in practice.