A Rhode Island-based conservative legal group on Monday filed a federal civil rights complaint against the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, alleging a program for female undergraduate students of color unlawfully discriminates against white students who aren’t able to participate.
The seven-page complaint was filed with the Boston office of the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights by the Equal Protection Project of the Legal Insurrection Foundation based in Barrington, R.I., according to a copy the group shared with the Globe.
“We bring this civil rights complaint against the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for creating, supporting and promoting a program for undergraduate students – called the Creative Regal Women of Knowledge, or ‘The CRWN’ – that engages in invidious discrimination on the basis of race, color and sex,” foundation President William A. Jacobson wrote in the complaint.
The complaint said that “only undergraduate ‘women of color’ can participate in the program. Applicants who fall outside of those race- and sex-based categories are ineligible.”
Jacobson wrote that his group wants the Office for Civil Rights to “impose remedial relief as the law permits for the benefit of those who have been illegally excluded from” the program and ensure that “all ongoing and future programming through MIT comport with federal civil rights laws.”
An MIT spokesperson said the school doesn’t comment on legal matters.
According to its website, the CRWN program is available to second-year students and above. Students can remain in the program through graduation.
The goals of the program include enhancing and strengthening community among women of color at MIT, increasing opportunities to participate in “academic excellence and professional development” on campus and beyond, and helping women of color “effectively and efficiently navigating the MIT experience ... through general advising and group mentoring opportunities,” the site says.
Jacobson said in a statement that the program’s eligibility requirements “are openly racially and sexually discriminatory.”
“Regardless of the purpose of the discrimination, it is wrong and unlawful.” He said it “does society no good to inject more racism and sexism into the educational system through discriminatory university programs.”
In addition, the US Supreme Court last year ruled that “discriminating on the basis of race to achieve diversity is not lawful,” Jacobson said. “As Chief Justice [John] Roberts wrote in the majority opinion, ‘[e]liminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.’”
The Legal Insurrection Foundation was launched in 2019, and its Equal Protection Project began last year. The group said the initiative has “challenged dozens of exclusionary fellowship programs, many of which are open only” to non-white individuals.
“We have several investigations ongoing that will result in more actions in the near future, including litigation,” the site says.
Jacobson, a Harvard Law graduate, is a clinical professor of law and director of the Securities Law Clinic at Cornell Law School, according to his biography.
Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com.