The Equal Protection Project (EqualProtect.org) is best known for the work we have done challenging race- and ethnicity-based DEI discrimination in higher education.
But we also increasingly have handled sex discrimination cases, typically discrimination against men but also discrimination against women in those few instances where we find it. Many if not most of our cases involve “women in STEM” type programs – there is no legitimate governmental interest in discriminating based on sex in the sciences, unlike in sports.
During 2025-2026 (ytd) we have filed 26 cases for sex discrimination. Most are straightforward, but a small number have a “gender identity” twist. For example, we recently challenged MIT for a women in physics program that permitted women, and people who identified as women, to participate. This was sex discrimination because women who identified as women were allowed, but men who identified as men were not.
Now that the Supreme Court has ruled definitively, in the girls sports cases, that sex under Title IX refers to biological sex not gender identity, we see this as an area for further expansion.
Bloomberg News has taken note of our activity and success, and reached out to us for more information and comment, which we provided.
We ended up being a focus of an article that was syndicated across the Bloomberg networks as part of a broader story about the alleged scaleback of female-only scholarships. The article was very fair, but I think the headline pushed a negative viewpoint. Particularly at major publications, headlines are written by the web editors to get clicks, so this one portrayed the Title IX compliance by schools as unnecessary based on the opinion of one person they spoke with.
In any event, read the whole thing, here’s an excerpt, Schools Are Cutting Women’s Scholarships Even When They Don’t Have To (emphasis added):
Universities and companies are scaling back or eliminating women’s scholarships as a way to avoid scrutiny from the Trump Administration, even though officials haven’t explicitly barred single-sex scholarships….Major employers, including Palantir Technologies Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google, have also dropped scholarships and initiatives aimed at increasing female representation. A database of more than 38,000 scholarships maintained by the National Scholarship Providers Association shows the number of grants with women-specific eligibility criteria has declined 19% since 2023, according to Jackie Bright, the group’s chief executive officer.***Single-sex scholarships administered by colleges have long created legal hurdles under Title IX, which prohibits sex-based discrimination at federally funded schools. Even before the current Trump administration, programs that weren’t carefully administered had drawn federal scrutiny.To comply with the law, many colleges have used a “pool and match” approach. Schools first identify scholarship recipients without considering protected characteristics such as sex or race, then match identity-specific donor funds to eligible students so that no qualified recipient is excluded. Such scholarships can help recruit students from underrepresented groups who might otherwise have enrolled elsewhere, or encourage them to pursue majors they might not have considered, according to education and legal experts….Beth Gellman-Beer, an education law consultant and former regional director at the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, said the division has signaled that scrutinizing single-sex scholarships is a priority. In the past year, OCR has completed at least 10 investigations into single-sex scholarships, resolution agreements show. In some cases, investigators required that schools pull advertisements for externally-funded female-only scholarships from their websites. In others, it directed schools to change or scrap the programs.Still, Gellman-Beer said the legal standards for women-only scholarships haven’t changed, even as rules for race-conscious programs have. “There are a lot of schools that are now eliminating these single-sex scholarships, particularly for women in the STEM fields, when they don’t have to,” she said.While most legal activists have focused on challenging race-specific initiatives, William Jacobson, founder of the Equal Protection Project, lodged 26 complaints last year over scholarships, clubs and programs he argues unlawfully exclude men by limiting eligibility to women or female-identifying students.“Sex discrimination is an area of expansion,” Jacobson wrote in an email. “Now that the Supreme Court definitively has determined that ‘sex’ in Title IX means biological sex, we see expanded opportunity moving forward,” he added, referring to the court’s recent ruling in a case involving girls’ sports.One complaint targeted members of the Claremont Colleges. After the filing, Pitzer College and Claremont Graduate University removed preferences for female students in descriptions of endowed scholarships. Other colleges in the consortium also scrapped mentions of race from their grants.Claremont Graduate University said in an email that OCR dismissed the complaint in March and added that it “continually reviews” scholarship descriptions and eligibility language for legal compliance. Pitzer said it “remains committed” to educational access, inclusion and opportunity.Some universities have broadened eligibility for women’s programs. After a complaint from the Equal Protection Project, Fordham University updated its website to say membership in a women-in-business club was open to all students. A physics organization at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology did the same.
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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