SOUTH BEND, Ind. (WNDU) – IU South Bend has been hit with a civil rights complaint.
A lawsuit is challenging five different scholarships the university offers under the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Scholarships page.
The Equal Protection Project (EPP) filed the complaint Wednesday morning, claiming the scholarships violate both Title VI and the 14th Amendment.
These five scholarships are aimed at supporting Black and other minority students, but the EPP is against this, arguing the university is offering, administering and promoting scholarships that discriminate.
The complaint states, in part, “If an educational institution treats a person of one race differently than it treats another person because of their race, the educational institution violates the law.”
“There’s various terminology, which is all race based, racialized terminology, as for who’s even eligible to apply,” says William A. Jacobson, founder of the Equal Protection Project. “And we believe that that’s a violation of the law, that you cannot do that with regard to a scholarship.”
WNDU 16 News Now has reached out to the university for public comment about this lawsuit, but we have yet to hear back.
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