The University of Minnesota is giving out paid research internships that white students are not allowed to apply for.
The taxpayer-funded Multicultural Summer Research Opportunities Program is a 10-week summer research internship for undergraduate students and is only open to non-white students.
According to the university’s website, the students will work full-time with a faculty mentor on either an established research project or they will create and develop their own with the faculty mentor.
Each participant will receive a $6,000 stipend for “personal and research expenses” and an additional stipend of an unknown amount that is given to the faculty mentor for use by the student.
At the top of the list of requirements to qualify, above the minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0, is “Identify as a Student of Color or Native American.”
The Equal Protection Project of the Legal Insurrection Foundation filed a federal civil rights complaint with the Office of Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education on May 19 over an entire race being excluded from the opportunity.
According to a press release from the organization, “The University of Minnesota is engaging in unlawful discrimination through the Multicultural Summer Research Opportunities Program. Racial discrimination by a public institution is illegal regardless of which race suffers. Discrimination against white applicants is just as unlawful as discrimination against black or other non-white applicants. There is no good form of racial discrimination. Because UMN receives federal funding, OCR had the power and obligation to make UMN stop and to impose whatever remedial relief is necessary.
The organization is asking the Office of Civil Rights to “order that UMN’s discriminatory practices be discontinued immediately and take all necessary enforcement action to effectuate that order. This includes, if necessary, imposing fines, initiating administrative proceedings to suspend, terminate, or refuse to grant or continue federal financial assistance, and referring the case to the Department of Justice for judicial proceedings to enforce the rights of the United States.”
“The U. Minnesota segregated summer program is inexcusable, and it’s shocking that a major university would so openly make educational opportunities open only to students of a certain skin color,” Bill Jacobson, president of the Equal Protection Project (EPP), told Fox News. “EqualProtect.org calls on the university immediately to open-up the summer program to students of all races, ethnicities, and skin colors.”
“There is no good form of racial discrimination. Depriving white students of educational opportunities does not promote racial or any other form of justice,” Jacobson continued. “U. Minnesota’s conduct is inexcusable.”
Timcast News has reached out to the University of Minnesota for comment and will update this story if one is provided.
