(RepublicanNews.org) – A nonprofit organization has filed a federal civil rights violation complaint against the University of Minnesota for openly excluding white people from an advertised university job.
Conditioning the offer of employment based on race or skin color is uncontroversially illegal in the United States, but the University of Minnesota appears to be unconcerned with that fact. The Legal Insurrection Foundation lodged the federal complaint after discovering a U of M advertisement for an internship that pays $6,000. The internship is part of the school’s “Multicultural Summer Research Opportunities Program,” a 10-week summer course for undergraduates.
The advertisement plainly states that the job is open only to students who “identify” as “a student of color or Native American.” The term “of color” is widely understood to refer to any racial group that is not “white.” It is unclear what it would mean for a student to “identify” as black, for example, nor is it known how the school would respond to an apparently white student who claimed an “of color” identity. An ancestry test, perhaps?
The Legal Insurrection Foundation’s president, a Cornell University law professor, confirmed that the job qualifications are strictly illegal. William Jacobson said there seems to be an idea in modern America that racial discrimination is just and fine as long as it disadvantages white people or Asians.
“We don’t accept that,” Jacobson said, likening such practices to the segregation and discrimination of the 1950s.
Publicly funded colleges like U of M do not have the legal right to discriminate based on race – a position that, until recently, seemed to be universally understood and accepted.
Speaking with the New York Post, Jacobson said the University of Minnesota was being disingenuous when it told the newspaper that the internship was not “paid,” and therefore would not qualify as employment. A $6,000 stipend, Jacobson pointed out, is indeed payment.
Jacobson’s organization has taken action against other public universities for race-based discrimination.
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