Complaint alleges race, sex discrimination in U of I scholarships

[August 30, 2024]  By Catrina Petersen | The Center Square contributor

(The Center Square) – The Equal Protection Project has filed a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education against the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign.

The complaint alleges the university engaged in illegal discrimination based on both race and/or sex in over 40 scholarships that are offered to students.

Professor William Jacobson of Cornell Law School, who founded the Equal Protection Project, said the eligibility requirements for these scholarships are openly discriminatory. He said regardless of the purpose of the discrimination, it is wrong and unlawful.


"Violation of the Civil Rights Act takes place when they publish this information. The discrimination, the legal violation, is not just awarding [the scholarship] based on race or gender, but it is also promoting it that way,” said Jacobson. “If you were a store [owner] and you put a sign out that said, ‘no Blacks,’ that’s a violation. It doesn’t matter whether you physically barred people from the doorway. The fact they were promoting [scholarships] on their website, informing students that they are restricted by race and sex is the violation.”

Jacobson said the next step is for the U.S. Department of Education to launch a formal investigation into the state's flagship university.

"Once that happens, then, typically, the department tries to get some voluntary compliance from a school. In fact that might happen even before they open a formal investigation, they have an early resolution process. I don’t know if they’ll use that [process] here, but they could,” said Jacobson.

Jacobson said the department typically will first try to get the university to comply before resorting to formal enforcement action.

The Center Square sought comment from the university, but the request was not immediately returned.

University of Illinois
University of Illinois

It’s been just over 70 years since the Brown v. Board of Education decision, which ended racial segregation in public education. Jacobson said it is sad to see that higher education institutions like UIUC are re-segregating the student body through exclusionary scholarships.

"[In the complaint] we specify violations of Title IX, which is discrimination on the basis of sex. We specify violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which is discrimination based on race, color or national origin,” said Jacobson.

Jacobson’s complaint lists over 40 scholarships that he says violates the law. The complaint includes web links to the school’s website where eligibility requirements are laid out. For example, some scholarships require students to be of Latino/Latina descent, another requires applying students to be of Lithuanian descent.

“We’ve never seen 42 in one place before and what is also unique about it is that they [the university] discriminate in almost every direction,” said Jacobson. “So they discriminate against whites, Blacks, women and men. What this tells me is that there is a complete breakdown in compliance with the CIvil Rights laws at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign.”

Jacobson said colleges and universities need to adopt The Equal Protection Project’s principle, which is that there is no “good” form of racism, and the remedy for racism is not more racism.