RICHMOND, Va. (WWBT) – The University of Richmond is now facing a civil rights complaint against it.
The Rhode Island-based Equal Protection Project alleges that the university is offering discriminatory scholarships, singling out the VSCPA, Business Partnership and the Law Women’s Centennial scholarships.
“Two violate the section six of the Civil Rights Act, by their terms on the university’s website limit themselves to what they call minorities,” said William Jacobson, founder of the Equal Protection Project. “That’s a very commonly understood term to mean non-white. The other scholarship is listed as [a] women’s scholarship; discrimination on the basis of sex violates Title IX if it favors men or if it favors women.”
Jacobson told me that the Department of Education and the Office of Civil Rights would review his complaint, and if they agreed, the university could lose federal funding.
Civil Rights complaints like these have become more common since the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling, which effectively ended affirmative action in college admissions.
“Our goal is not to shut down the scholarships,” Jacobson said. “We want the students to get the money, but we think every student should have an equal shot at that money without regard to race, color, national origin or sex.”
Patricia Hunter-Jordan, president of the Hanover chapter of the NAACP, spoke up about the complaint Friday evening, saying minority scholarships are needed in universities.
“I am saying that in our laws, when the Civil Rights Act was put in place, they were put in place to make up for those disparities, to make up for the fact that we have not been given an equal hand,” Hunter-Jordan said.
In the 1960s and 1970s, Jacobson says Remedial Affirmative action was more common, which means an institution was trying to cure the discrimination it had committed itself.
“That was lawful, but we are now several decades beyond that. I have not seen any discriminatory scholarships that we’ve challenged that were remedial in nature,” said Jacobson. “None of them say we are going to cure our own past history of discrimination; they are more intended to end some societal goal of discrimination.”
“If anyone can share with us where we have reached those levels, then I may be in agreement,” said Hunter-Jordan. ”But I find no evidence that we have reached those levels of equality.”
12 On Your Side reached out to U of R about this complaint, and they sent over this statement:
“We’ve had no outreach from the Office of Civil Rights on the complaint you are describing.
We have robust non-discrimination policies and are committed to adhering to all federal civil rights law.”
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