Three Discriminatory Scholarships at U. Richmond Challenged By Equal Protection Project

Three Discriminatory Scholarships at U. Richmond Challenged By Equal Protection Project

Our Equal Protection Project (EqualProtect.org) has challenged over 500 discriminatory programs and scholarships at over 110 colleges and universities.

Our most recent filing was a Civil Rights Complaint against the private University of Richmond:

We bring this civil rights complaint against University of Richmond (“URichmond”), a private college, for discrimination in three (3) scholarships based on race, color, or national origin (2), or sex (1), in violation of Title VI and Title IX, respectively.

URichmond Office of Financial Aid offers multiple internal scholarships for which eligible students are automatically considered based on their initial enrollment application.2 It alsopromotes external scholarships and requires students to report external scholarships, whichare incorporated into URichmond financial need assessments.

We then go on to list the scholarships at issue and why we believe they violate the Civil Rights Act:

The scholarships listed below3 are currently active according to the URichmond website, and violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VI”) and its implementing regulations4  by excluding students based on their race, color, or national origin, while other scholarships violate Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (“Title IX”) and its implementing regulations5 by excluding students based on their sex:

I. SCHOLARSHIPS AND PROGRAMS THAT VIOLATE TITLE VI (2)

1. VSCPA Scholarship
Link: https://robins.richmond.edu/undergraduate/departments/accounting/scholarshipsawards.
html
Archived Link: http://archive.today/ujAUM
Discriminatory Requirement: “Available to a minority student with need, GPA of 3.0 or
higher, and a positive faculty recommendation”6

[fn] 6 Although this is an external scholarship, U Richmond promotes the discriminatory scholarship to URichmond students on URichmond’s scholarship page.

2. Business Partnership Scholarship
Link: https://robins.richmond.edu/undergraduate/departments/businessadministration/
scholarships-awards.html
Archived Link: http://archive.today/VgxV5
Discriminatory Requirement: “minority from Richmond area” and “preference to a minority Virginian”

II. SCHOLARSHIPS THAT VIOLATE TITLE IX (1)

1. Law Women’s Centennial Scholarship
Link: https://uronline.net/law/100women100years;
https://scholarship.richmond.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1218&context=lawstudent-
publications
Archived Link: https://archive.is/wip/tP1gL; https://archive.ph/wip/4Mnw1
Discriminatory Signaling: “In honor of the 100th anniversary of Richmond Law’s first female graduate, alumna Mary Lou Kramer, L’75, has committed $50,000 in matching funds to establish the Law Women’s Centennial Scholarship. With a collective goal of $100,000 and 100 donors, this scholarship will celebrate a century of women at Richmond Law, while paving the way for future students to experience a world class legal education.” 7

[fn] 7 Although the URichmond website does not delineate specific sex-based requirements this scholarship’s framing as a “Women’s” scholarship, and the promotional language clearly signaling that the scholarship is intended for women, would dissuade males from applying or URichmond from seriously considering men. See cases cited below….

***

URichmond also “signals” racial and sex-based preferences. As the Second Circuit recognized in Ragin v. New York Times Co., 923 F.2d 995, 999–1000 (2d Cir. 1991), even subtle messaging can convey discriminatory preferences: “Ordinary readers may reasonably infer a
racial message from advertisements that are more subtle than the hypothetical swastika or burning cross, and we read the word ‘preference’ to describe any ad that would discourage an
ordinary reader of a particular race from answering it.” This signaling is actionable because the law looks to how an ordinary reader or applicant would perceive the program. See United States v. Hunter, 459 F.2d 205, 215–16 (4th Cir. 1972) (advertisements judged by effect on the ordinary reader, regardless of intent). When URichmond highlights race and sex as defining goals of the scholarships, the ordinary reader reasonably assumes that these traits govern eligibility. That deterrent effect is itself discrimination.

ABC8 News covered the story:

“We examined these scholarships, we examined what was on the school’s website about them, and our legal analysis was that these do violate the Civil Rights Act,” said William Jacobson, founder of the Equal Protection Project.

Jacobson argues that the term “minority” is widely interpreted to mean nonwhite students and could dissuade others from applying. He said the women’s scholarship also signals to male students that they are not eligible.“

The university has rules which prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin and sex,” Jacobson said. “And so we’re not asking the university to do anything it hasn’t already committed to do.

”The Equal Protection Project is calling on the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights to open an investigation.

In a statement to 8News, a UR spokesperson said the school has not received any communication from the Office for Civil Rights.“We have robust non-discrimination policies and are committed to adhering to all federal civil rights law,” the spokesperson said.

News12 also covered the case:

In the 1960s and 1970s, Jacobson says Remedial Affirmative action was more common, which means an institution was trying to cure the discrimination it had committed itself.

“That was lawful, but we are now several decades beyond that. I have not seen any discriminatory scholarships that we’ve challenged that were remedial in nature,” said Jacobson. “None of them say we are going to cure our own past history of discrimination; they are more intended to end some societal goal of discrimination.”

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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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