On May 31, 2026, the Equal Protection Project (EqualProtect.org) filed a Civil Rights Complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division regarding race- and ethnicity-based based recruitment for the Black Male Initiative (BMI) at the City University of New York (CUNY), run jointly with the City of New York (NYC). For details on the Complaint and BMI, see our prior post, CUNY Systemwide Race-Based Recruiting Challenged In Equal Protection Project Complaint To DOJ.
On June 9, 2026, DOJ announced that it was opening a formal investigation, a big first step in the DOJ process:
The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division announced an investigation today into possible race discrimination by the City University of New York (CUNY). The Division received reports alleging that CUNY’s Black Male Initiative (BMI) provides educational benefits to minorities, particularly black males, on the basis of race.“Race can never play a role when deciding how to distribute educational resources or opportunities,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “This Justice Department will not tolerate universities directing educational benefits to certain students over others based on their race.”CUNY’S BMI is a system-wide program that encompasses recruitment, admissions, student aid, as well as academic support and professional development. The program, as the name suggests, appears to favor select non-white minorities — primarily black males — over applicants of other races.The Department opened the investigation of CUNY pursuant to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits recipients of federal financial assistance from discriminating on the basis of race, color, or national origin. CUNY receives substantial federal financial assistance.The Civil Rights Division has not reached any conclusions about the subject matter of the investigation.
The announcement received widespread media coverage, including in The NY Daily News, Fox News. and The NY Post:
The Equal Protection Project filed a complaint in early June accusing the program of violating federal civil rights laws by giving preference to students on the basis of race.William Jacobson, the founder of the EPP, told The Post that the advocacy group is “pleased” to see the DOJ “acting on our complaint.”“Every student deserves equal treatment, and recruiting for educational opportunities never should be dependent on race or ethnicity,” Jacobson said….In 2012, the Obama-era Department of Education determined that the initiative was consistent with federal law — a decision that Jacobson balked at.“The discrimination in the program should have been stopped almost 15 years ago. Only a legally ridiculous 2012 decision by the Obama Department of Education allowed the discrimination to continue. It is time for DOJ to correct this injustice,” Jacobson told The Post before the DOJ’s investigation.
The Chronicle of Higher Education, the premier higher ed journal, also covered the story:
CUNY did not respond to The Chronicle’s request for comment. The bottom of the Black Male Initiative website states that the program is “open to all academically eligible students, faculty and staff, without regard to race, gender, national origin or other characteristic.”But the messaging around the initiative is “likely to deter students who do not fall within the identified categories from participating,” William A. Jacobson, a Cornell Law professor, who filed the complaint, wrote. “Certainly, no one would dispute that if CUNY had a ‘White Male Initiative’ structured similarly to BMI it would dissuade non-Whites from participating.”Jacobson’s Equal Protection Project — a legal group focused on rooting out “racially disciminatory” diversity programs from higher education — has filed 115 complaints with the government over 850 identity-conscious programs since it launched in 2023.“We’re all in favor of Black males getting the help they need in college, but a public university that receives federal funding cannot promote programs as being exclusively for one group,” Jacobson said in an interview with The Chronicle. “They can give the same programming, but promote it as available to everybody.”
So far the efforts of EPP have led to over 40 federal investigations at three agencies, the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and Justice.
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