STEM Program Excluding Asians And Whites at Four PA Universities Challenged By Equal Protection Project
The Keystone Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation at East Stroudsburg University, Millersville University, Slippery Rock University, and West Chester University operate the program under a National Science Foundation grant.
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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.)
Almost all of our actions have addressed discrimination in higher education. In our latest action, we have 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 four universities that comprise the Keystone Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (“Keystone LSAMP Alliance”), East Stroudsburg University, Millersville University, Slippery Rock University, and West Chester University (“Alliance Members”), for administering and promoting a program which excluded Asians and Whites from participation.
From the Complaint:
The Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMP) is a National Science Foundation (NSF) program that aims to increase the number of underrepresented minorities earning science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) degrees.2 Recipients must be part of a four-school alliance that implements strategies to improve recruitment, retention, and graduation rates in STEM fields. The federal LSAMP funding program requires Alliances to “directly address recruitment, preparation and retention of LSAMP populations” which they define as “…Blacks and African-Americans, Hispanic and Latino Americans, American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders.”3 This is an active federal grant program that has a proposal deadline of November 21, 2025. [image omitted]
3While the federal LSAMP program aims to increase the number of underrepresented minorities earning STEM degrees, participating members are not required to discriminate on the basis of race, color, or national origin, and at least one participant not at issue in this complaint does not discriminate. See, e.g., https://www.csum.edu/lsamp/eligibility-application.html [https://archive.is/wip/GUIWK] (last accessed January 27, 2025). (“Although the project’s goals and anticipated outcomes are stated in terms of improving URM participation in STEM, it is important to emphasize that CSU-LSAMP does not limit participation to URM students”).
***
The Keystone LSAMP Alliance,4 received funding approval in 2023 from the National Science Foundation to initiate their program.5 The program includes “…a summer bridge program for entering students, Alliance specific curriculum and co-curricular activities (including mentoring, academic support, STEM career exploration, STEM research opportunities, and linking social justice with STEM), summer programs (after first year) focused on research preparation for future internship opportunities, and preparation for work or graduate school.” [image omitted] ….
The Keystone LSAMP Alliance is made up of four institutions: East Stroudsburg University, Millersville University, Slippery Rock University, and West Chester University. These institutions share one application for the program.6 They also share a website with information about the program, the application, and contact information.7 ….
The application and description for this program make it clear that the program is for minorities only.8 The description states that the program is “…intended to support historically underrepresented students in the STEM fields.9” Historically underrepresented students is defined by the program as “African Americans, Hispanic Americans, American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and Native Pacific Islanders.” 10 [image omitted]
Additionally, the application itself limits applicants to “Underrepresented Minorities,” which includes only “African American, Hispanic American, American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian/Native Pacific Islander, or two or more from the list.” A reasonable student who did not fit one of these racial or ethnic groups likely would not apply due to the racial and ethnic barriers.
…. The Keystone LSAMP Alliance program violates Title VI because it conditions eligibility for participation on a student’s race and ethnicity.11 And, because the Alliance Members are public universities, their promotion and administration of this discriminatory program also violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.12
11 The fact that the Keystone LSAMP Alliance is federally-funded is irrelevant since no statute or regulation requires the universities to discriminate, and even if there were such a requirement, the universities subject to this complaint have an independent non-discrimination legal obligation under Title VI and the 14th Amendment. If the universities believed they were required to violate the law in order to get the funding, they should have turned down the funding.
The filing has generated substantial media coverage, including WTAE ABC News 4 in Pittsburgh:
… a nonprofit watchdog group called Equal Protection Project said the program’s intent discriminates against white and Asian students.
“So they are not able to participate, and that’s simply not acceptable. That’s a matter of law,” William Jacobson, the founder of Equal Protection Project said.
WPXI 11 News in Pittsburgh also covered the story:
The Western PA Tribune, syndicated on Yahoo News, also covered it:An out of state group has filed a federal civil rights complaint against Slippery Rock University and three other universities in Pennsylvania.
The complaint was filed by the Equal Protection Project against the Keystone Louis Stokes Alliance. It comes amid the Trump Administration’s efforts to shut down diversity, equity and inclusion programs….
A conservative nonprofit is asking the U.S. Department of Education to investigate Slippery Rock University and three other state schools, alleging that their participation in a national program to recruit minority students into science majors is discriminatory against white and Asian students.
The Equal Protection Project, an offshoot of the Rhode Island-based Legal Insurrection Foundation, filed a complaint on Tuesday with the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights in Philadelphia.
It is asking for an investigation into its claims and seeks relief up to and including fines, suspension or termination of federal financial assistance for those schools.
This is the first OCR Complaint we have filed since the change of administrations.
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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Comments
Excluding Asians and whites says it’s a STEM program for traditionally stupid races. Selling it that way explicitly might reduce some of the incentive.
Would love to see, just one time, a couple of White and Asian students band together and sue the crap out of these schools, for being discriminated against. Have a good lawyer or lawyers and someone to back them, financially, and simply have at it, and not just win the case, but get it on the books so it can be used by others, as well as hit these people where it hurts the most, right in the wallet, where they will pay the most attention.
This, to me, would be the best way to put a quick end to this kind of thing. Until the people behind this are financially hit, and hit hard, and possibly hit with criminal charges, if that’s at all possible, this kind of thing will continue.
There needs to be consequences, and until there are consequences, this will not stop.
It’s dismaying that these brazenly racist and unlawful education programs are still being created and unabashedly marketed.
It’s time for #47’s DOJ and DOE to get involved and make abundantly clear that such discrimination will not be tolerated and creates civil liability.
Big thanks to Professor Jacobson and the EOP team, once again.
So they exclude those most likely to learn STEM, and and instead put math is racist dudes at the head of the line.
I am looking forward to the good old days of placing people according to their capabilities, sole merit based,
This stuff has been going for 50 years. When I finished high school and started engineering school, there was a program for “disadvantaged minorities” to get them ready. Such a program would helped some white students I knew of (and I didn’t know a lot of people that well) but they were not offered it and maybe never heard of it.
I don’t know how well it worked, but I know that in the upperclass years we were saddled with an entitled black student who as far as I could tell had no competence but was being passed along and would get his bachelor’s degree. I had to work on a team with him, and we couldn’t get him to do any work. Not cognitively that demanding, just requiring effort, he was too good for it. This is what happens when some students are given an easier ride than others.
I want to go back to a world where if I am hiring a young engineer out of school, I don’t have to worry about his race. I know he’s proved himself at school the same as anyone else.