As Iowa Regents DEI Vote Looms, Equal Protection Project Challenges Discriminatory U. Northern Iowa Scholarships

As Iowa Regents DEI Vote Looms, Equal Protection Project Challenges Discriminatory U. Northern Iowa Scholarships

The Equal Protection Project (EPP) (EqualProtect.org) of the Legal Insurrection Foundation has challenged numerous discriminatory programs done in the name of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. In all we have filed over 50 complaints and legal actions since launch in February 2023, with approximately half the schools withdrawing or modifying the discriminatory programs after our filing. (See EPP November 2024 Impact Report.)

The Iowa legislature, in a bill signed by the Governor and scheduled to take effect in July 2025, is eliminating DEI programming and bureaucracy at the state’s public universities: “The legislation bans public institutions from having DEI offices and from hiring or assigning anyone “to perform duties” of a DEI office.”

The legislation was a reaction to a perceived lack of clear action by the Iowa Regents, which controls the University of Iowa, Iowa State, and University of Northern Iowa. Now the Iowa Regents, under pressure to make sure its policies conformed to the law, is scheduled to vote on January 15, 2024, whether to remove DEI language from the Regents Strategic Plan:

The Iowa Board of Regents will consider a new draft of its strategic plan at its meeting next week, edited to remove language pertaining to diversity, equity and inclusion.

According to documents released Tuesday, the body’s new 2022-2027 strategic plan would remove certain guidelines and words in response to legislation that has passed over the past two years. In addition to DEI changes, the board would remove references to special schools no longer under its purview and gender balance on boards.

“The edits in the attached draft are intended to ensure alignment of the Board of Regents Strategic Plan 2022-2027 with all state and federal laws,” the document stated.

Against this political backdrop, on January 8, 2025, EPP filed a Civil Rights Complaint (full embed at bottom of post) with the Office for Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education, against the University of Northern Iowa (UNI) challenging 13 scholarships that discriminate on the basis of race (6), sex (5), or both (2).

From the Complaint:

We bring this civil rights complaint against the University of Northern Iowa (“UNI”) for illegal race-based and sex-based discrimination in violation of Title IX and Title VI, respectively. Specifically, UNI offers, administers, and promotes thirteen (13) scholarships that discriminate based on race, sex, or both.

These scholarships are listed, promoted, and administered through the UNI online scholarship system.2 According to the “About” section of the UNI Scholarship Application page, it enables current and incoming students to apply for scholarships based on their specific major and university department affiliation.3 Applicants who click on the scholarship link are then required to login using their CatID, which is the UNI student’s “username and password used for systems through UNI’s Central Authentication System” as illustrated by the following screenshots. [images omitted]

UNI has three general categories of scholarships, as outlined on its website.4 The first category includes admissions-based scholarships, for which eligible students are automatically considered. The other two categories, relevant in this case, are the Financial Aid and Departmental scholarships, which require a separate application. Financial Aid scholarships are awarded by the Office of Financial Aid & Scholarships, while Departmental scholarships are awarded by specific UNI departments. UNI is therefore involved not only in promoting and administering these scholarships but also in selecting the recipients.

The scholarships listed below are currently offered to UNI students and applicants for admission, according to the UNI website, and violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VI”) and its implementing regulations5 by illegally excluding students based on their race and skin color, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (“Title IX”) and its implementing regulations6 by excluding students based on their sex, or both. Because UNI is a public university, these discriminatory scholarships also violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Each of the scholarships listed below have a January 15, 2025, application deadline according to the UNI website, and some or all of them are renewable annually.

The filing has received extensive Iowa media coverage, particularly in the Cedar Rapids market.

CBS affiliate KCCI8 interviewed me and ran this report:

“When you’re a university and you accept federal funding, one of the things you have to agree to do is to abide by the civil rights laws,” Jacobson said. “We do not believe that the University of Northern Iowa, or any school, should be limiting educational opportunities based on race or sex.”

The complaint cites a U.S. Supreme Court decision from 2023 that effectively ended affirmative action in college admissions. The ruling did not explicitly mention scholarships or financial aid, but Jacobson said it still applies.

“We believe that the Supreme Court’s ruling that diversity is not a sufficiently compelling state interest in order to justify racial discrimination applies to all aspects of the university,” Jacobson said. “A scholarship, if it discriminates on the basis of race, it invokes the same legal principles that the affirmative action case did.”

Additional coverage has been provided by The Gazette, a Gannet paper syndicated nationally confirmed the political background:

Adding to its 50-plus civil rights complaints across the nation in recent years accusing academic institutions of race- and sex-based discrimination, the anti-affirmative action Equal Protection Project has filed a federal complaint against the University of Northern Iowa for what it called “discriminatory scholarships.”

In the complaint — filed Wednesday with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights — the Rhode Island-based group accused UNI of offering, administering and promoting 13 scholarships that “discriminate based on race, sex, or both.”

“Discrimination is unlawful no matter which race or sex is targeted or benefits,” Equal Protection Project Founder William A. Jacobson said in a statement about the complaint against UNI. “All students are entitled to equal treatment without regard to race or sex.”

The complaint comes on the heels of state legislation and Board of Regents directives barring Iowa’s public universities from spending or committing resources to diversity, equity and inclusion offices or employees not required by law or for accreditation.

The new state law — taking effect this July — defines DEI, among other things, as “any effort to manipulate or otherwise influence the composition of the faculty or student body with reference to race, sex, color, or ethnicity, apart from ensuring colorblind and sex-neutral admissions and hiring” and “any effort to promote differential treatment of or provide special benefits to individuals on the basis of race, color, or ethnicity.”

The regents’ DEI directives include one requiring its campuses to ensure services supporting “diversity or multicultural affairs” are available to all students.

Regents next week will consider an update to the board’s strategic plan modifying diversity, equity and inclusion goals — with the campuses slated to update their plans in February.

“The Iowa Board of Regents will vote on January 15 whether to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) language from its strategic plan as part of the legislatively prescribed elimination of DEI programming,“ Jacobson said in a statement. ”The blatant discrimination in the scholarships challenged by the Equal Protection Project highlights the need for such reforms, as DEI has turned into blatant discrimination.”

ABC9 KCRG also interviewed me and ran this report:

TV9 also spoke to the founder of EPP, William Jacobson. He says the organization has found 13 discriminatory scholarships associated with the public university. In the official complaint, they list several scholarships for students who are female, students of a specific race, and students of a specific national origin. Jacobson says their hope is that this case is opened very quickly by the US Department of Education.

“Our hope here is that the most senior administrators at the university, and at the Board of Regents would look at this and say it’s indefensible,” said Jacobson.

The Equal Protection Project has filed similar complaints. Earlier this month, the group filed a civil rights complaint against the school district in Rochester, Minnesota alleging discrimination on the basis of race in a couple of its programs that receive federal assistance.

We Are Iowa provided details:

The 13 scholarships identified by the nonprofit are meant for students of color and female students, as highlighted on the school’s website.

Aside from those commonalities, the scholarships vary greatly. Some include that students major in a certain area, or that they graduate from a high school in Black Hawk County. In addition, some of the scholarships require applicants to be of a certain race or gender, while others simply indicate a “preference.”

“Discrimination is unlawful no matter which race or sex is targeted or benefits. All students are entitled to equal treatment without regard to race or sex,” said William A. Jacobson, founder of the Equal Protection Project.

We will continue to follow developments.

Reminder: 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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