University Gets Civil Rights Complaint for Alleged Discrimination

The University of Rhode Island received a civil rights complaint due to 51 scholarship opportunities discriminating against students based on race and sex.

The complaint was filed to the United States Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights. It alleges that the school engaged in "pervasive and systemic" discrimination via its scholarship programs by using sexual and racial characteristics in their selection criteria.

"We bring this civil rights complaint against the University of Rhode Island ("URI") for offering, promoting, and administering fifty-one (51) student scholarships that discriminate based on race and/or sex. The discrimination is so pervasive and systematic that urgent action by OCR is needed before the scholarships come up for reapplication in the spring 2025 semester," the complaint from the Equal Protection Project states.

"The discrimination in scholarships at URI is shocking in its breadth, far exceeding any other university we have seen at the Equal Protection Project. URI does not even try to hide the discriminatory barriers, they are all detailed on the URI website," William A. Jacobson, the organization's founder, told The Daily Wire.

For example, the Bank of America Scholarship, one of the scholarships listed in the complaint, is designated for "two four-year scholarships for minority students, preferably one male and one female." Another, the Citizens Bank Scholarship, states that it "will be awarded to minority students with financial need who live in Rhode Island."

"In Richmond v J. A. Croson Co., Justice Scalia aptly noted that 'discrimination on the basis of race is illegal, immoral, unconstitutional, inherently wrong and destructive of a democratic society. This is true regardless of which race suffers — discrimination against white applicants is just as unlawful as discrimination against black or other non-white applicants,'" the complaint reads. "We call upon OCR, both under the current leadership and the incoming Trump administration leadership, to prioritize the investigation of URI in light of the systematic discrimination taking place," Jacobson concluded.

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