Cal State Alters Systemwide Program Excluding Whites and Women Challenged By Equal Protection Project
“OCR confirmed that, since you filed your complaint, the University made changes to the Consortium and its programs/initiatives such that they are open to any student regardless of race, color, national origin, and sex.”
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The Equal Protection Project has filed over 50 Civil Rights Complaints covering almost 150 university scholarships and programs, resulting in several dozen “wins” (discriminatory conduct halted). The enormous publicity our efforts generated (over 200 distinct broadcast media interview and several hundred digital (online) articles, contributed — we hope — to changing the culture surrounding discrimination done in the name of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) permitted political change.
On November 19, 2024, EPP filed a Civil Rights Complaint with the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) of the U.S. Department of Education against the California State System and seven of its campuses:
California State University, Chancellors Office – Case Number 09-25-2108;
California State University, Bakersfield – Case Number 09-25-2109;
California State University, Dominguez Hills – Case Number 09-25-2110;
California State University, Long Beach – Case Number 09-25-2111;
California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt – Case Number 09-25-2112;
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona – Case Number 09-25-2113;
California State Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo – Case Number 09-25-2114;
California State University, Stanislaus – Case Number 09-25-2115
We covered the details in our blog post, Systemwide Program Limited to “Males of Color” at California State University Challenged By Equal Protection Project.
On January 15, 2025, we received a letter from OCR indicating it was closing the case as “resolved” because CalState had changed the program:
At the time you filed your complaint, the Consortium webpage included language that indicated that it only served certain students based on race, color, national origin, and sex. Specifically, at the time you filed your complaint, the webpage describing the overview of the Consortium stated that its goal is to improve outcomes for “Black, Latinx, Asian Pacific Islander and Native American males.” The overview also stated that the “23-campus Consortium was established to explore the unique challenges young men of color face during their postsecondary experiences, as well as advance effective approaches to better support them.” As you describe in your complaint, the Program’s website also stated that the Program was necessary due to several reasons including: “national averages” of postsecondary degree attainment showing that Black, Latinx, Asian Pacific Islander and Native American males “lag behind” those national averages, “racial inequities in educational contexts” as early as pre-kindergarten, a “scarcity of investments in opportunities for young men of color,” and competition amongst entities for funding and to “attract young men” to their programs.
Since you filed your complaint, OCR has confirmed that the Consortium now provides training and skills development to professionals who work directly with students with the goal of increasing their ability to support “young men of color,” while recognizing that the skills will be helpful to benefit any student regardless of race, color, national origin and sex. Any professional, regardless of race, color, national origin, and sex can participate in and receive the benefits of the Consortium….
The CSU system has worked with its universities, including the seven Universities identified in your complaint, to ensure that their respective programs that are part of the Consortium are also open to any student regardless of race, color, national origin, and sex. Below are descriptions of each of the specific programs you identified in your complaint, and the changes made by the Universities to address the allegations you raised….
OCR confirmed that, since you filed your complaint, the University made changes to the Consortium and its programs/initiatives such that they are open to any student regardless of race, color, national origin, and sex. Because OCR has obtained credible information indicating that allegations are resolved, the facts underlying the allegations are no longer present, and OCR has no evidence the law is violated, OCR is dismissing the complaint in accordance with subsection 110(d) of the CPM.
So this is a win systemically over the CalState system, not just the specific campuses.
Fox News digital has picked up the story and did an video interview with me, California State University changes ‘illegal’ program that excluded White men:
California State University changed a program that was only open to men of color to now be open to all students, following a complaint filed to the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.
“Cal State, like most universities, has very large bureaucracies devoted towards preventing and remedying discrimination,” Cornell professor William Jacobson and founder of the Equal Protection Project, told Fox News Digital. “So how is it that the university as a system engages in open discrimination?” ….
“The Cal State system at the highest level needs to look into how this happened to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Jacobson said. “It should not take a group like mine, a small nonprofit like mine, to bring this sort of issue to attention and to get it resolved. This is something they should self-police. But apparently they didn’t.” ….
The California State University System didn’t respond to a request for comment.
However, Jacobson told Fox News Digital that it remains to be seen if the issue is resolved.
“When a school changes the language for a program and opens it up to everybody, are they really doing that,” Jacobson said. “Is that how they’re practicing? Is that what they’re doing when they think nobody is watching? And that’s a huge concern because one of the problems we have is we often feel like we’re playing Whac-A-Mole. We knocked down this program and get them to open it up and another one pops up someplace else and you deal with that and then another one pops up someplace else.”
He added that the public plays a significant role in oversight and accountability.
“We need people to be vigilant because you can’t just accept at face value that a school says, ‘We’re not going to do that anymore,’ and just assume they’re not going to do that anymore,” he said. “So that’s what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to teach the universities not to do this and hope that they don’t. But we rely on the public to alert us if they’re not fulfilling their obligations.”
VIDEO
Transcript auto-generated, may contain transcript error, lightly edited for transcription clarity.
The Equal Protection Project that I’m the founder of has filed over 50 complaints against colleges and universities regarding openly discriminatory programs and scholarships. We got a tip about the Cal State system and when we investigated, we found that they had a discriminatory program running system-wide at over 23 campuses, although we only found seven where it was actually in progress. And we filed a complaint against the system, the chancellor’s office, and seven of the campuses regarding the Young Males of color program.
As the title indicates, it excludes females and it also exclude males who are not of color, essentially white males. And you can’t do that. It’s a public university, needs to abide by the 14th Amendment. Equal Protection Clause, needs to abide by the Civil Rights Act because it also receives federal funding and it needs to abide by California law. And the schools’ own rules and regulations prohibit such discriminatory conduct.
So we filed a complaint against the system plus seven colleges, and the Office for Civil Rights of the Department of Education looked into it and reported back to us just a few days ago that the schools had essentially changed their conduct. They had eliminated the exclusionary provisions that prohibited students from participating based on race and sex. And because they had changed the conduct, the department of Education considered the matter resolved.
And for us, that’s a win because our primary and our first goal is to end discriminatory conduct. So we consider this to be a great success for the Equal Protection Project, which is at equalprotect.org.
There were a number of aspects of this that we consider to be egregious. First of all is the broad sweep of it. No women allowed. No white men allowed. That just seemed like a sledgehammer to our Civil Rights Act.
But what also was shocking is that it was system-wide. Like I said, while we challenged seven campuses where there was an ongoing program, this was actually at 23 campuses, this was the entire Cal State system had embraced open discrimination.
That’s what we found most egregious here because Cal State, like most universities, has very large bureaucracies devoted towards preventing and remedying discrimination. So how is it that the university as a system engages in open discrimination, and none of the people in the bureaucracy said, well, wait a second. How can we do this? We’re not allowed to do this. And that’s extremely troubling. It might be that they all believed they were allowed to do it, and that’s problematic itself. How could they think you can do this? Or it might be that they knew they couldn’t do it and did it anyway, regardless of which one it was.
The Cal State system, at the highest level needs to look into how this happened to make sure it doesn’t happen again. It should not take a group like mine, a small nonprofit like mine to bring this sort of issue to attention and to get it resolved. This is something they should self-police, but apparently they didn’t.
One of the issues we always face here is when a school changes the language for a program and opens it up to everybody, are they really doing that? Is that how they’re practicing? Is that what they’re doing when they think nobody is watching? And that’s a huge concern because one of the problems we have is we often feel like we’re playing whack-a-mole. We knock down this program and get them to open it up and another one pops up someplace else and you deal with that, and then another one pops up someplace else.
So we don’t really know what’s going on behind closed doors at these universities. It’s why we rely very heavily on tips from the public as to what’s going on.
Anybody who has a tip can go to our website, equalprotect.org, and we have a contact box. But we need people to be vigilant because you can’t just accept at face value that a school says, oh, we’re not going to do that anymore, and just assume they’re not going do that anymore. So that’s what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to teach the universities not to do this and hope that they don’t, but we rely on the public to alert us if they’re not fulfilling their obligations.
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Comments
“So this is a win systemically over the CalState system, not just the specific campuses.”
BRAVO. Good job.
Winning.
Well done! Well done indeed, Sir! You fought the brave fight through the darkest hours. You deserve to enjoy the light shining on you now!
So, the Cal State University system, as a whole, engaged in “systemic discrimination” against non-minorities and men. I guess white men can’t be accused of that anymore, huh?
What does that tell us about the effectiveness, and the actual goals, of their DEI bureaucracy, if no one apparently raised red flags about their programs?
Institutional racism against whites?