Lehigh U Faculty Development Program Discriminating Against White Males Challenged By Equal Protection Project
“The Advancing Future Program violates both Title VI, by discriminating on the basis of race, skin color, or national origin and Title IX, by discriminating on the basis of sex. White males are disadvantaged relative to women and racial and ethnic minorities.”
Our Equal Protection Project has challenged over 125 institutions regarding over 600 discriminatory programs and scholarships.
Our latest filing at the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (OCR) was on November 20, 2025, against Lehigh University in Pennsylvania regarding its Advancing Future Faculty Development Postdoctoral Program (“Advancing Future Program”) that discriminates based on race, color, national origin, and/or sex in violation of Title VI and Title IX, respectively. The Advancing Future Program is similar to “The Ph.D Program”, for which OCR previously opened investigations at 45 other higher education institutions.
From the Civil Rights Complaint (images omitted):
We bring this civil rights complaint against Lehigh University’s Advancing Future Faculty Development Postdoctoral Program (“Advancing Future Program”) that discriminates on the basis of race, color, national origin, and/or sex in violation of Title VI and Title IX, respectively. The Advancing Future Program is similar to “The Ph.D Program” as to which OCR previously opened an investigation at 45 other higher education institutions, and we request that this case be opened for investigation consistent with OCR’s prior position.2
Advancing Future Faculty Development Postdoctoral Program
The Advancing Future Faculty Development Postdoctoral Program is a tenure-track training initiative at Lehigh University “designed to create an outstanding professional opportunity for scholars with diverse backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives, including those historically underrepresented in the academy.”3 The program “enhances the diversity and skills of future faculty” by offering postdoctoral scholars enriching research and professional development experiences that prepare them for tenure-track roles. After two (up to three) years of successful participation, “scholars will have the opportunity to be considered for assistant professor positions” at Lehigh.
“This initiative at Lehigh University is a direct outcome of the 2020 call for Creative Ideas to Transform Lehigh into an Anti-Racist Institution.”4 …
Benefits
Participants receive “a competitive salary (minimum $66,000), full employee benefits (including contributions to retirement), and $10,000 per year professional funds for use towards conferences, travel, professional development, research supplies, etc.”5
The program “provides enriching research experiences and pre-faculty professional development in a top-notch and collaborative environment” and serves as a pipeline to a tenure-track position at Lehigh, as “following two (up to three) years of a successful postdoctoral experience, scholars will have the opportunity to be considered for assistant professor positions.” This program has been specifically advertised as an “on ramp” to a tenure track position at Lehigh by the Lehigh Dean of the College of Health.6
Requirements
The Advancing Future Faculty Development Postdoctoral Program is specifically designed to support scholars from historically underrepresented groups in the academy, including “women, racial and ethnic minorities, persons with disabilities, first-generation students, and members of the LGBTQ+ community.”7 Thus, women and racial and ethnic minorities are automatically eligible without regard to other identity factors, while white males are not eligible unless they have additional identity factors. This sets up a racially and sex-based discriminatory standard. [Emphasis added.]
Lehigh makes clear that this program is for “historically underrepresented” individuals. On its official College of Health Instagram page, Lehigh stated that the program’s goal is to “hire prospective future faculty (focus on historically underrepresented groups) committed to inclusive excellence.”8
We then explain why this discriminatory standard violates Titles VI and IX of the Civil Rights Act.
The Advancing Future Program violates both Title VI, by discriminating on the basis of race, skin color, or national origin and Title IX, by discriminating on the basis of sex.9 White males are disadvantaged relative to women and racial and ethnic minorities….
OCR’s recent enforcement actions confirm that the conduct described here is unlawful.11 On March 14, 2025, OCR publicly announced Title VI investigations into dozens of universities that allegedly partnered with “The Ph.D. Project,” a race-exclusive program in graduate education similar to the Advancing Future Program.12 OCR simultaneously opened investigations into institutions awarding race-based scholarships or operating racially segregated programs. These investigations parallel the discriminatory characteristics present in Lehigh’s Advancing Future Program and further underscore that race- and sex-restricted academic initiatives directed at faculty advancement violate federal civil-rights law.
We have not heard yet from OCR, but hopefully it will open a formal investigation in light of its prior investigations into similar programs.
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
What’s so disgusting isn’t that one or more institutions engage in race/sex based discrimination but that they continue to do so in an open manner. They don’t hide it. They aren’t embarrassed or ashamed much less concerned about the illegally. It is the ‘default’ setting across our society to openly discriminate against ‘cis white men’ and has been for decades.
I’m certainly not excusing it, but I think it’s inertia. So many rules for the EEOC and various government agencies compelled them to do it for decades.
Yes, very true that there were all sorts of policies, regulations and statutes demanding open discrimination against ‘white men’, particularly or maybe especially if they were also ‘straight and/or Christian or at minimum not an adherent of a minority religion. All of which were prima facie illegal and unconstitutional.
As Gen X I came of age in this environment. It was ‘understood’ that many jobs, promotions, scholarships, programs, opportunities were effectively off limits to a plain vanilla ‘white male’. It was accepted as routine, matter of factly as ‘the way things are’. I’ve experienced it personally several times, even directly informed why an opportunity was handed to someone else. As they say ‘it is what it is’ and I’ve long since come to terms with it but it would be nice if we could end it so current and future generations aren’t subjected to blatant discrimination.
IMO this is one key and often overlooked part of the reason for growing dissatisfaction in our younger generations. Imagine you try to do what your Parents and society ‘tells you to do’; go to college, get a degree, get a job, get promoted, get married, get a house, have children. Gonna get pushed out of many highly competitive schools due to this (+ foreign students taking up scarce seats), thus CV isn’t quite good enough to land top positions, manage to get hired but the door to special track and most promotions is either closed entirely due to AA or severely narrowed. No promotion means less income so buying a home gets tough (ave Sal ’00 -$58K with ave home price @ $202K v ave Sal in ’25 of $62K with ave home price @ $512K). Many younger men can’t afford a home despite full time solid employment. Add to this many women tend to seek a ‘partner’ who out earns them or at least matches their salary…but since the ’80s women have out enrolled and out graduated men in college, bringing home generally higher salaries and with AA programs out promote their male counterparts…thus many men find themselves to be financially undesirable as a ‘partner’ and can’t find a girlfriend much less a wife. Those that manage to get married are likely to find themselves divorced(approaching high 40s in 1st marriage) with all the financial burden it creates. They give up and become disassociated from a society that views them as ‘less than’ and/or disposable. They become vulnerable to kooks like Fuentes. IMO until the underlying social, economic and legal issues/barriers that were deliberately imposed by society which harm ‘plain vanilla white guys’ are removed or severely curtailed lot’s more folks gonna get seduced by the kooks.