U. Arkansas-Walmart BIPOC-Only Program Paused After Equal Protection Project Challenge

U. Arkansas-Walmart BIPOC-Only Program Paused After Equal Protection Project Challenge

You may recall that in September of last year, the Equal Protection Project (EPP) (equalprotect.org) filed a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) against the University of Arkansas (U of A) for a “BIPOC” only mentorship program funded by Walmart: U. Arkansas-Walmart Joint BIPOC-Only Mentor Program Challenged By Equal Protection Project:

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 University of Arkansas regarding a career mentoring program sponsored jointly with Walmart and Sams Club open only to “BIPOC” (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) students.

From the Civil Rights Complaint:

We make this civil rights complaint against the University of Arkansas (“U of A”), a public university located in Fayetteville, Arkansas, for sponsoring and promoting – in partnership with Sam’s Club and Walmart – a racially discriminatory program called the BIPOC Mentor Circle Series (“BIPOC Mentor Circle”).

On September 9, 2024, U of A announced creation of the BIPOC Mentor Circle Series. According to U of A’s website, a “core objective” of the program, whose monthly meetings will be held in a campus building during the 2024-2025 academic year, is “[t]o enhance the long-term professional development of BIPOC students as they transition into the workforce.”

The BIPOC Mentor Circle is sponsored and promoted, at least in part, by U of A. Further, according to the U of A website, the points of contact for the program are the vice president of U of A’s Black Graduate Students Organization, who upon information and belief is an employee of U of A, and the U of A’s Office of University Relations.

Upon information and belief, U of A funds the Black Graduate Student Association, a registered student organization, which is involved in administering the BIPOC Mentor Circle. The application form for the program also states that the program is intended to “support and enrich the long-te1m talent cycle of the BIPOC student cohort class to transition and apply for roles within the Walmart corporation.”

And, the form requires applicants to identify their ethnicity and race.

Another mandatory application question makes clear that applicants must be BIPOC by requiring them to “describe a challenge [they] have faced as a BIPOC individual in [their] professional or academic journey and how [they] overcame it.”

The program’s monthly meetings are held on U of A‘s campus, in one of its classroom buildings.

EPP’s hope, of course, was that the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights would open a formal investigation into the discriminatory goings on at U of A, but we have not been notified of such at this point.

One thing we also do is periodically go back over all of EPP’s old Complaints, looking to see if any of the entities we have asked OCR to investigate have changed their ways even if OCR has not initiated a formal investigation against them. And when we did, we discovered, lo and behold, that U of A had deleted all possible mention of the “BIPOC Mentor Circle Series.”

For example, the link that previously took readers to the above-pictured news page regarding the “BIPOC Mentor Circle Series” now simply says “SORRY! The requested story is expired.”

Other links used to access the program, including the sign-up page that required the applicant to identify his or her ethnicity, are also inoperable.

We probably should have checked on this sooner, given that during the opening media flurry about EPP’s Complaint about U of A’s BIPOC Mentor program, the University’s director of media relations and core communications, John Thomas, had this to say in response to a query from the Washington Times:

“We are reviewing this matter, which involves a registered student organization initiative,” he said in an email. “The University is fully committed to ensuring that all members of the University community can fully participate in its programs and activities without regard to race or ethnicity, and requires the same of UA student organizations.”

As soon as we discovered that U of A’s BIPOC Mentor program had been removed from the website, we reached out to U of A’s director of media relations, John Thomas, and he quickly responded:

The University of Arkansas is committed to ensuring that all members of the University community can fully participate in its programs and activities without regard to race or ethnicity, and requires the same of UA student organizations. The mentoring program that is the subject of the complaint is an initiative of a registered student organization.  The program is not currently active, and participants are not currently being solicited or chosen.  If the program relaunches in the future, changes will occur to further clarify that participation is open to any interested students.

The Washington Times also found out about U of A terminating this program and wrote about it on February 4th: Conservative nonprofits battle racial discrimination in education fueled by DEI:

The University of Arkansas has also terminated all of its DEI and CRT related programs: University of Arkansas Dissolves DEI Office

And, on November 25, 2024, almost exactly two months after EPP filed its civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education about the Walmart-funded BIPOC Mentor Series at the University of Arkansas, Walmart itself committed to backing off from supporting DEI initiatives:

MASSIVE news: Walmart is ending their woke policies. I can now exclusively tell you what’s changing and how it happened.

Last week I told execs at @Walmart that I was doing a story on wokeness there. Instead we had productive conversations to find solutions.

Below are the… pic.twitter.com/BD02xJQ0X2

— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) November 25, 2024

To summarize the bullet points from the above X post:

Here are the changes Walmart committed to:

• Surveys: Walmart will no longer participate in the HRC’s woke Corporate Equality Index.

• Products: Monitor the Walmart marketplace to identify and remove inappropriate sexual and / or transgender products marketed to children.

• Funding of Grants: Review all funding of Pride, and other events, to avoid funding inappropriate sexualized content targeting kids.

• Equity: We will not extend the Racial Equity Center which was established in 2020 as a special five-year initiative.

• Supplier Diversity: We will evaluate supplier diversity programs and ensure they do not provide preferential treatment and benefits to suppliers based on diversity.  We don’t have quotas and won’t going forward.  Financing eligibility will no longer be predicated on providing certain demographic data.

• LatinX: Walmart will no longer use the term in official communications.

• Trainings: Walmart will discontinue racial equity training through the Racial Equity Institute.

• DEI: Walmart will discontinue the use of DEI as a term while ensuring a respectful and supportive environment.

In summary, big news both from the University of Arkansas and Walmart.

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