California State University changed a program that was only for guys of color so it is now open to all students. This change happened after a complaint was made to the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.
Cal State, like many universities, has a big system in place to stop and fix discrimination, said William Jacobson, a Cornell professor and founder of the Equal Protection Project, to Fox News Digital. “How does the university system practice open discrimination?”
On November 19, 2024, Jacobson and the Equal Protection Project filed a lawsuit saying that 23 campuses of California State University had a “Young Males of Color Consortium.”
The group was formed to “make changes in higher education and improve results for Black, Latinx, Asian Pacific Islander, and Native American men,” as stated on their website.
The complaint from EPP states that discrimination is generally illegal, and since CSU cannot provide a strong reason for it, their exclusion based on race, skin color, national origin, and sex breaks federal civil rights laws and the constitutional right to equal protection.
Jacobson said, “The top leaders of the Cal State system need to investigate how this occurred to prevent it from happening again.” A small nonprofit like mine shouldn’t have to point out this problem and get it fixed. They should monitor themselves. “But it seems they didn’t.”
The ending letter dated January 15, 2025, from the Office for Civil Rights states that California State University is not allowed to discriminate based on sex according to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.
Title IX stops any discrimination based on sex or gender for organizations that get government money. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act stops discrimination based on race, color, or national origin in any program or action that gets federal money.
The lawsuit claims that at least eight out of the 23 programs broke Title VI and Title IX laws, including “The Cal Poly San Luis Obispo Men of Color Success Initiative Male Success Initiative.” The program was only for kids who identify as men of color.
In the final letter, the Office of Civil Rights stated that CSU has made the consortium available to all students.
“OCR confirmed that since you filed your complaint, the University has changed the Consortium and its programs to allow any student to participate, no matter their race, color, national origin, or sex,” the ending letter says. “OCR has found reliable information showing that the allegations have been resolved, the facts behind the allegations are not there anymore, and there is no proof that the law has been broken.”
The California State University System did not reply to a request for a comment.
Jacobson told Fox News Digital that it’s not clear yet if the problem has been fixed.
“When a school changes a program’s language and makes it available to everyone, are they truly doing that?” Jacobson asked. “Is that how they’re training?” Is that what they do when they think no one is watching? This is a big problem because it often feels like we are just dealing with one issue after another. We knocked down this program and get them to open it up and another one pops up someplace else and you deal with that and then another one pops up someplace else.”
He said that the people is very important for monitoring and ensuring responsibility.
“We need people to stay alert because you can’t just believe a school when it says, ‘We’re not going to do that anymore,’ and assume they actually won’t,” he said. “That’s our goal.” We are working to educate the universities about this and hope they will avoid it. We depend on the people to inform us if they are not doing what they should.
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