Dominican University in River Forest is the subject of a federal legal complaint calling for the school to be investigated for its use of scholarship programs to support students of color.
The Legal Insurrection Foundation, a national conservative activist organization, says it has submitted a legal complaint to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights alleging that four of the university’s scholarships violate federal law.
A Dominican spokesperson said the university is aware of the complaint but has had no contact from the federal agency.
Founded in 2008 by Cornell law professor William A. Jacobson, the group has organized around a variety of conservative education causes, including representing teachers who’ve been fired for expressing anti-LGBT viewpoints and launching a digital tool to track colleges and K-12 schools which it alleged had implemented “critical race theory” curriculum.
“Racial and ethnic discrimination is wrong and unlawful no matter which race or ethnicity is targeted or benefits. All students are entitled to equal treatment without regard to race, color, or national origin,” Jacobson said in a prepared statement. “Dominican has strong nondiscrimination policies and rules. It should live up to its own standards,” his statement said.
The descriptions for the scholarships mentioned in the complaint all reference there being a “preference” for applicants of one or more specific ethnic backgrounds. The scholarships targeted in the complaint aim to promote diversity either at the school or within a specific professional field, but none of the descriptions for any of scholarships say that students from other ethnic groups were ineligible for selection.
Dominican University Chief Operating Officer Gerano Balcazar said the university was aware of the complaint but had not been notified by the Department of Education of any formal investigation being pursued against the university.
“We will not comment further on this potential legal matter,” Balcazar said.
The complaint against Dominican is just one of many submitted by the group in recent weeks, with diversity-promoting programs at Northern Illinois University, University of Wisconsin and University of Minnesota among those challenged in recent months. None of those challenges have yielded further legal action yet, according to Legal Insurrection’s website.
These challenges follow the 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Harvard vs. Students for Fair Admissions, which found that race-conscious affirmative action programs violated the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment, overturning decades of legal precedent in the process.