The Equal Protection Project filed a complaint against Indiana University in July last year. Six months later, the group has not heard back from the Department of Education.
The EPP is a nonprofit organization investigating free speech and expression in universities, businesses, and the government. Last summer, they lodged a complaint against IU, taking issue with 19 race-based scholarships.
IU did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Seven of the scholarships were for the Kelley School of Business and the rest were for IU Indianapolis and its McKinney School of Law.
Kelley scholarships named in the complaint included the following:
- Rao and Anita Uppaluri Underrepresented Minority Scholarship
- Uppaluri In State Underrepresented Minority Scholarship
- Steven Bretthauser Business Diversity Scholarship
- Richard McVey Kelley Diversity Scholarship
- Daniel and Maureen Aron Diversity Finance Scholarship
- Howard Jones Scholarship
- Dworkin International Scholarship
Of the seven scholarships named in the EPP’s complaint, six have remained unchanged. The seventh, the Dworkin International Scholarship, does not appear to have an application page on Kelley’s website.
The EPP took issue with the wording in the scholarship eligibility criteria, which required awardees to be underrepresented minorities. The EPP claimed IU violated Title VI, which “prohibits intentional discrimination based on race, color or national origin in any ‘program or activity’ that receives federal financial assistance” as well as the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
“What we seek in every case, primarily, first and foremost, is for the university to change discriminatory conduct,” Cornell Law School professor and founder of EPP William Jacobson said. “In the case of a program or scholarship, that would mean reworking the eligibility requirements to eliminate exclusion based on race, color, national origin or sex.”
The EPP’s website said the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights was still evaluating the request. To Jacobson’s knowledge, they have yet to open a formal investigation, though he said the process could take a while. The OCR did not respond to a request for comment.
“It’s hard to say what’s the standard,” Jacobson said. “Sometimes they sit for months and months. Other times, the department acts quickly.”
Jacobson said that the EPP filed a complaint against the University of Rhode Island in December for 51 race-or-sex-based scholarships and that an investigation had been opened by the Department of Education’s OCR in less than a month. However, he said that was unusual for the most part.
“Our hope is to stop what we consider to be bad conduct,” Jacobson said. “In more than half the cases, that is the result.”
Over the last few weeks, he said his organization had received several letters from the OCR about other cases they filed that were considered to be resolved due to the eligibility requirements and descriptions of the program being changed to eliminate racial criteria.
Most recently, the EPP has filed civil rights complaints against Grand Valley State University, the University of Northern Iowa and Northern Illinois University.
“Given the nature of the politics in Indiana and the focus on DEI, we would have expected the university to acknowledge they made a mistake here and to correct it,” Jacobson said.
In the Indiana General Assembly, a bill was authored by Rep. Jake Teshka (R-South Bend) and introduced on Jan. 8. While still in its early stages, House Bill 1173 would prohibit universities from using, “an applicant's race, color, or ethnicity to make decisions concerning the applicant's admission, scholarship, or financial aid.”
“The question that we always have is, where the universities have very clear non-discrimination rules, which we completely support, why are they not living up to it?” Jacobson said. “How is it that nobody intervened before we filed the complaint?”
Indiana University’s policy statement said that it prohibits discrimination based on age, color, disability, ethnicity, sex, gender identity, gender expression, genetic information, marital status, national origin, race, religion, sexual orientation or veteran status.
