HUD To Investigate UMass-Amherst and U. Nevada-Reno Over Race-Focused Dorms After Equal Protection Project Complaints
This makes four universities whose race- and ethnicity-based campus housing are under investigation following civil rights complaints by EPP. More to follow.
The Equal Protection Project (EqualProtect.org) has challenged over 290 institutions regarding over 850 programs that discriminate in the name of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. The breadth of DEI discrimination is far more sweeping than people realize – race- and ethnicity-based preferences remain pervasive.
Identity-based campus housing has not received much attention. That is changing, thanks in part to EPP’s efforts.
On July 12, 2026, EPP challenged Race-Focused Dorms at UConn and UMN alleging violations of the Fair Housing Act (FHA) in Complaints filed at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which has jurisdiction over FHA violations. On July 16, we reported that HUD had opened investigations into UConn and UMN based on our complaints.
We also filed two additional complaints, against the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (UMass Amherst), and the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR):
The legal substance of these complaints was similar to the prior complaints – that by steering students towards or away from particular housing based on race or ethnicity, the schools were violating the FHA even if technically the dorms were “open to all” students. From the U.Mass-Amherst Complaint:
We bring this complaint and request for investigation against UMass for operating three discriminatory university housing programs at the Amherst campus that use race- and ethnicity-based descriptions and promotional materials to steer students based on race, color, and national origin, in violation of the Fair Housing Act (“FHA”):
• “Asian/Asian American Defined Residential Community”;
• “El Barrio: Latinx Defined Residential Community”; and
• “Harambee: African/African American Defined Residential Community.”
From the UNR Complaint:
We bring this complaint and request for investigation against UNR for operating four discriminatory university housing programs that use race- and ethnicity-based descriptions and promotional materials to steer students based on race, color, and national origin, in violation of the Fair Housing Act (“FHA”). Moreover, the programs are each named utilizing the racial identities of their suggested racial participants:
• Asian Pacific Islanders;
• Black Scholars;
• “Indigenous;” and
• Latinx.2
Each Complaint contained extensive evidence including links and screenshot to back up the steering allegations. HUD has now opened both of those cases for investigation:
Opening a case for investigation is not a finding of liability, but it is a very big first step in the process.
This makes four universities whose race- and ethnicity-based campus housing are under investigation following civil rights complaints by EPP.
More cases to follow.
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Comments
UMass Amherst has had at least one race-based dormitory on campus for over 45 years. All you need to know about how that university approaches both politics and race can be found by contemplating who they named the library tower after – W. E. B. DuBois.
Remember “separate but equal”? Lefists just recycle old ideas hoping for a better outcome.
This is not the same as the “separate but equal” that the Supreme Court overturned in 1954 not on the ground that it was conceptually unconstitutional but on the ground that empirically the separate facilities for blacks just were never equal. Warren had enough trouble getting a unanimous opinion for that and would never have gotten it, maybe not even a majority, for an opinion grounded in constitutional principle.
But as the law has developed since then, it is highly likely that a racially oriented dorm is unlawful per se, even though in most settings self-segregation by a minority into a facility that is not better than what is offered to everyone else does not have the same amount of deleterious effect on the excluded majority as the detriment to blacks in education that Brown v. Board sought to uproot.