Bowdoin College is now facing a civil rights complaint from the Equal Protection Project (EPP) filed on Wednesday, after it allegedly discriminated on the basis of race and sex in 18 separate scholarships and programs.
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“Bowdoin should know better than to run scholarships or programs that treat students differently based on race, color, national origin, or sex. Where were the administrators and staff whose jobs supposedly are devoted to preventing discrimination? Why was there no intervention to uphold the legally required equal access to education,” said EPP founder William A. Jacobson.
“That race- and sex-based discriminatory scholarships exist at a highly ranked college is shocking and reflects how Critical Race Theory and its offshoots like Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, are deeply embedded in the campus culture. It is time for higher education everywhere to focus on the inherent worth and dignity of every student rather than categorizing students based on identity groups,” he added.
The EPP is devoted to ending discrimination in higher education and has filed lawsuits against over 100 colleges and universities.
The complaint identifies eight scholarships that seemingly violate federal Title VI anti-discrimination laws that prohibit discrimination based on race.
One such scholarship, the Alice G. and Frederick W. Titus Scholarship Fund, openly states that it gives preference to “students from minority groups who enhance diversity on campus.”
The EPP found nine scholarships that apparently violate Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, a federal anti-discrimination law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex.
The Shelly Chessie Miller Scholarship Fund gives first preference to female students from Canada, seemingly discriminating based on both sex and national origin.
One scholarship, the Pamela E. Herbert Memorial Scholarship, apparently violates Title VI and Title IX by prioritizing minority female students.
“Regardless of Bowdoin’s reasons for offering, promoting, and administering such
discriminatory scholarships and programs, Bowdoin is violating Title VI by doing so. It does not matter if the recipient of federal funding discriminates in order to advance a benign ‘intention’ or ‘motivation,'” says the complaint.
The scholarships listed in the complaint are all currently accepting applications, with the deadline for applications set for June 30.
“We call on Bowdoin to re-examine the campus culture, including at the faculty and administrative levels, to understand why some forms of discrimination appear to be tolerated,” said Jacobson.
The EPP submitted its legal complaint to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights on Wednesday.
Read the full complaint here:
