The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights dismissed a complaint from the anti-affirmative action group Equal Protection Project against the University of Wisconsin’s former Creando Comunidad: Community Engaged BIPOC Fellows program, citing racial discrimination.
The BIPOC Fellows program invited students who are part of a historically underrepresented race or ethnic group to participate in community engagement projects and earn a $500 scholarship, according to a past program flyer.
EPP filed the complaint last January and was notified of the OCR’s decision for dismissal Sept. 19 following the Department of Education’s investigation. The OCR dismissed the complaint after UW renamed the program Creando Comunidad and removed the race and ethnicity eligibility criteria, according to the decision document.
The revised Creando Comunidad program aims to bring together students interested in addressing systemic oppression by engaging with communities of color.
In an email statement, UW Assistant Vice Chancellor John Lucas said the adjustments still align with the program’s goals and mission.
“The assessment of this program was part of the ongoing review UW-Madison has been undertaking to ensure compliance with Department of Education guidance following the Supreme Court decisions in UNC and Harvard cases,” Lucas said in the email.
Students for Fair Admission sued the University of North Carolina and Harvard University over affirmative action practices, and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2023 that universities may not use race as a factor in admissions.
Cornell University law professor and founder of EPP William Jacobson said his group was most likely notified about the program’s criteria through EPP’s online contact form.
“We filed this complaint because the program issue was restrictive in terms of eligibility based on race and ethnicity,” Jacobson said. “And that violates not only federal law, but it also violates the university’s own rules.”
UW prohibits discrimination which, as defined on their website, includes conduct that adversely affects an individual’s participation in the university’s activities or programs.
Jacobson said EPP has filed complaints against other universities’ programs that the group believes are discriminatory — such as women in STEM programs, but those are not EPP’s main focus, Jacobson said. Jacobson said he has not been notified of any other complaints at UW.
“We haven’t generally looked for them [other programs] at U Wisconsin,” Jacobson said. “That’s why I’m suspecting that this must have come in as a tip. We haven’t scoured the website. Maybe we should, but we haven’t.”
Jacobson said he thinks the UW administration should examine its policies to ensure racial or ethnic eligibility criteria does not appear in the future.
