A self-described anti-racism group has filed a federal civil-rights complaint against SUNY Albany over the taxpayer-funded school’s controversial library internship program that’s available only to black students.
The Equal Protection Project claims the action by the State University of New York at Albany to support a program excluding white students engages in racial discrimination, thus violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the 14th Amendment’s equal-protection clause.
“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,” says the EPP complaint filed with the federal Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights and obtained by The Post.
The Post first reported on the controversy in April, when EPP sent a “cease and desist” letter to SUNY Albany, a.k.a. the University at Albany or UAlbany, to end its sponsorship of the “racially exclusionary program”, known as the Touhey Library Equity Fellowship.
EPP opposes racial preference policies in academia.
“We bring this civil rights complaint against the University at Albany (“UAlbany”), a public institution, for creating, supporting, and promoting a racially-restrictive paid internship program at the Albany Public Library (“APL”) known as the Touhey Library Equity Fellowship (“TLEF”),” the complaint says. “The TLEF is a paid summer internship at two of the APL’s branches, and is available only to black graduates of library school programs.
“OCR should investigate this blatantly discriminatory program and the circumstances under which the creation and promotion of it was approved, take all appropriate action to end such discriminatory practices and impose remedial relief. 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.”
According to UAlbany’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion’s web page, the TLEF was created in 2020 out of a “partnership” between the university and the Albany Public Library and designed to offer a fellowship limited to “students of color” in the school’s College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity.
Ualbany repeatedly promoted the program on its website and social media, the complaint notes.
The internship offers $1,500 scholarships and up to $11,500 in stipends to “black graduates of master library and information science … or master of science of science in information systems.”
The Albany Public Library website says the paid internship gives “recent Black graduates of library school programs the opportunity to gain valuable practical skills and proficiency in many aspects of public librarianship.”
The library deactivated the web page after EPP issued its cease-and-desist request, though the group previously took a screenshot of it as evidence.
“SUNY Albany has an expansive bureaucracy supposedly devoted to fighting discrimination, yet no one thought to ask why the university was creating and promoting a racially-exclusionary program?” said William Jacobson, founder of EqualProtect.org, to The Post.
“This raises the likelihood that certain forms of discrimination are deemed acceptable.
“SUNY Albany and the SUNY system need to examine whether in purporting to fight systemic racism they have perpetuated racism but in a different form. The remedy for racism should never be more racism.”
UAlbany spokesman Jordan Carleo-Evangelist said, “If or when the university receives a communication from OCR about this matter, the university will review it.”
A UAlbany rep previously told The Post that the school is “not involved in the administration of this fellowship program,” suggesting it is not engaging in discrimination.
But in its complaint, EPP said, “U.Albany created the racially-restrictive program and continues to promote it, which is a violation of law regardless of who administers it.”
Jacobson added to The Post, “It’s very disturbing that a SUNY school created a racially segregated program and promoted it for years, yet refuses to acknowledge its responsibility by asserting that it does not ‘administer’ the program.
“This attempt to offload the discrimination to an outside entity rings hollow since SUNY Albany has been involved every step of the way.”
The complaint noted that when the library fellowship program was launched in 2020, the vice dean of UAlbany’s College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity stated that it “aims to diversify the professional staff of the Albany Public Library …. Diversity is one of the cornerstones of our college. This fellowship not only exemplifies that, but also offers students a valuable experiential learning opportunity with one of our closest community partners.”
“The Office for Civil Rights has the power and obligation to investigate UAlbany’s role in creating, supporting, and promoting the TLEF program – and to discern whether UAlbany is engaging in such discrimination in its other activities – and impose whatever remedial relief is necessary to hold the university accountable for that unlawful conduct,” the complaint said.
SUNY has faced some criticism for requiring all incoming freshmen this fall to take at least one course that includes a so-called DEI — or diversity, equity and inclusion — component to earn a diploma.
But the school says such content is integral to so many existing courses that the need can generally be met by students fulfilling existing requirements.
This content was originally published here.
