FIRST ON FOX – The University of Virginia appears to have changed the website description of a mentoring program for BIPOC students after a civil rights complaint was filed with the U.S. Department of Education.
A federal civil rights complaint filed by the Equal Protection Project (EPP) on October 1 accused the University of Virginia of "creating, sponsoring and promoting a racially discriminatory program called the BIPOC Alumni-Student Mentoring Program" by excluding White students from the program designed to help classmates who fall into the "Black, Indigenous and People of Color" category.
The complaint noted that the program’s goal is to "improve BIPOC undergraduates’ program experiences, career opportunities, and retention through pairing these learners with alumni mentors," but the EPP feels such initiatives should benefit all students.
"The BIPOC Mentoring Program violates Title VI because it conditions eligibility for participation on a student’s race, ethnicity and skin color. And, because UVA is a public university, its creation, sponsorship, promotion and hosting of this discriminatory program also violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment," the complaint, which has been obtained by Fox News Digital, stated.
The EPP requested the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights to investigate UVA’s "role in creating, promoting and administering this program and to impose whatever remedial relief is necessary to hold it accountable for that unlawful conduct," noting that "fines, initiating administrative proceedings to suspend or terminate federal financial assistance and referring the case to the Department of Justice for judicial proceedings to enforce the rights of the United States under federal law" should be on the table.
The program is "made possible by the generosity of the UVA Parents Program and is overseen by EHD's Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (ODEI)" according to its website. Shortly after the complaint was filed, the EPP noticed changes to the BIPOC Alumni-Student Mentoring Program’s website.
The school’s website said the BIPOC Alumni-Student Mentoring Program was seeking "up to 25 BIPOC undergraduates" as recently as October 2, according to the Internet Archives Wayback Machine.
It has since been edited to declare the program is seeking "up to 25 undergraduates" and notes the "program was created with BIPOC students in mind."
Cornell Law professor William A. Jacobson founded the EPP to ensure fair treatment of all people without regard to race or ethnicity and feels the change is both an "admission of wrongdoing" and simply not enough.
"The wording change by UVA so soon after our complaint is a tacit admission of wrongdoing," Jacobson told Fox News Digital.
"These wording changes, however, do not fully solve the problem because UVA still signals that the program was 'created with BIPOC students in mind.' That is a dog whistle that only BIPOC students are encouraged to apply and that non-BIPOC -- i.e. White -- students are not welcome," Jacobson continued. "UVA needs to make the program fully open and welcoming to all students without regard to race rather than playing word games."
The EPP’s guiding principle is that there is "no ‘good’ form of racism," and that the "remedy for racism never is more racism," according to its website.
A University of Virginia spokesperson said the school hadn't yet received the complaint and couldn't specifically comment, but pointed Fox News Digital to the school’s position on discrimination.
