The language change doesn't make it legal, lawyers say.
A federal civil rights lawsuit has been filed against a Massachusetts Institute of Technology program that excludes white students.
Shortly thereafter, the school appears to have modified its webpage to state that “participation is open to all students regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, or national origin.” college fix Please review this morning.
However, according to the accuser, this does not make the program legal.
The Creative Regal Women of Knowledge program “engages in unfair discrimination on the basis of race, color, and gender,” according to the original complaint filed by the Legal Insurrection Foundation's Equal Protection Project.
It operates through the university's “Office of Minority Education.”
The legal group asked the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights to investigate MIT for alleged violations of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibits sex discrimination, and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits racial discrimination in higher education. .
The university appears to have modified its website shortly after filing the complaint and subsequent media coverage on Monday.
“CRWN is designed for undergraduate women of color, including Black, Native, Hispanic/Latina, Asian, Pacific Islander, and other minorities. Women include transgender women, cisgender women, and non-binary women,” the website stated last Friday, May 17.
It will now look like this: “CRWN is designed to inspire undergraduate students of color, including Black, Native, Hispanic/Latino, Asian, Pacific Islander, and other minorities. Women include transgender women, cisgender women, and non-binary women. “
There is also a new note under this description on the homepage.
“Our program is designed to support and celebrate undergraduate women of color, but participation is open to all students regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, or national origin,” the website states.
But William Jacobson, who filed the complaint, said the changed language doesn't eliminate legal problems.
“MIT changed the language on its website to assert that the program is open to everyone,” Jacobson said in an email this morning. college fix.
“But that is obviously not true. The entire structure of the CRWN program is exclusive and limited only to women of color,” said the president of the Legal Insurrection Foundation. He said the change was “an admission of error.”
“MIT’s posthumous website wording changes do not change the egregious violations of civil rights law that have been occurring for years and are continuing into the spring 2024 semester,” Jacobson said. “The exclusionary language of the CRWN program inevitably discouraged white women and all male students from applying. OCR should initiate a formal investigation and impose corrective and other sanctions against MIT.”
MIT declined to comment Wednesday morning when asked about the changes, including whether its attorneys had recommended the school make the edits. “MIT does not, as a matter of practice, comment on legal matters,” a spokesperson said in an email. Fixes.
Jacobson, who is also a law professor at Cornell University, offered to help MIT make the changes necessary to address the legal challenges raised by the complaint. He wants MIT to “publicly apologize” and “come up with a plan to correct things.”
“MIT also needs to move forward with transparency to ensure that changes to website wording are not a public relations ploy. The Equal Protection Project is willing to serve as a monitor for the program to ensure compliance, at no cost to MIT.”
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Image: MIT Department of Minority Education
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