I recently received the following email from a faculty colleague at the University of Michigan-Flint’s School of Management:

Dear School of Management (SOM) Faculty and Staff,

I am the school’s representative on the Chancellor’s recently established Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Committee. We are gathering data on what we do regarding diversity, equity and inclusion activities. Are there activities such as speakers, classroom activities, seminars, community engagement activities, etc. related to diversity, equity or inclusion that you are doing or participating in? Please email me a brief description of any activities you are doing or participating in related to DEI by February 28.

I responded to all SOM faculty and staff members in detail as follows:

I wanted to share with you some of my personal activities related to the issue of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion that might be relevant to the Chancellor’s new Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Committee.

Background: The federal civil rights law known as Title IX was passed in 1972 to prohibit sex discrimination in higher education. Subsequently, women advanced so rapidly that they outnumbered men in higher education for college enrollment by 1979 and outnumbered men for earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees by 1982. For the last 40 years, men have been an underrepresented minority in higher education and the gender disparity favoring women has increased steadily over time. Since 1982, the growing “gender degree gap” has resulted in women earning nearly 14 million more college degrees than men (see chart above). Yet women in higher education today including at UM, in violation of Title IX’s prohibition of sex discrimination, continue to receive a hugely disproportionate share of campus resources, funding, fellowships, centers, commissions, awards, and scholarships.

Universities across the country, including the University of Michigan on all three campuses, have routinely and illegally offered single-sex, female-only programs that discriminate against non-female students, staff and faculty in violation of Title IX’s prohibition of sex discrimination. Until recently, universities including the University of Michigan have engaged in illegal sex discrimination with impunity because they have not been challenged and held accountable for violating Title IX. Starting in 2016, I have been on a mission to challenge universities across the country, including the University of Michigan, that violate Title IX, and I have filed more than 100 Title IX complaints with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. About a dozen of those complaints have been successfully resolved in my favor (including some at UM-Flint) and more than 40 other complaints have resulted in federal investigations of civil rights violations that are ongoing (including a federal investigation of UM), and another 40 complaints or so are currently being reviewed by the Office for Civil Rights. I expect that those cases currently under review will eventually result in federal investigations, and I expect further outcomes in my favor for the cases that are eventually resolved.

One example of a successful outcome from my civil rights advocacy is the following: In 2017, UM-Flint’s College of Arts and Sciences, along with the Provost’s Office and K-12 Partnerships, attempted to launch an illegal, discriminatory, single-sex, girl-only, no boys allowed program called “Girls in Engineering, Math and Science (GEMS)” for middle school girls only. In violation of Title IX’s prohibition of sex discrimination, the GEMS program illegally discriminated against middle school boys, it illegally excluded boys from participating based on their sex, and it illegally denied boys from the educational benefits of this program based on their sex. In addition to violating federal civil rights laws (Title IX), UM-Flint’s GEMS program also violated: a) Michigan civil rights laws, b) the Michigan Constitution as amended by Proposal 2 in 2006, and c) the University of Michigan’s own Nondiscrimination Policy. After I filed civil rights complaints with the Michigan Department of Civil Rights and the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, the Title IX Office in Ann Arbor forced CAS and UM-Flint to convert the GEMS program from an illegal, discriminatory single-sex, girl-only program to a legal co-ed, gender-neutral program open to students of all gender identities. (I also successfully challenged three illegal single-sex, female-only faculty awards at UM-Flint and two illegal minority-only faculty awards, and those five faculty awards are now open to faculty of all genders and all races/colors.) I’m sure that if I hadn’t filed a civil rights complaint, the GEMS program would be operating today as an illegal, discriminatory, single-sex, girl-only, no boys allowed program.

The fact that the illegal, discriminatory UM-Flint GEMS program was initially approved by CAS faculty, CAS department chairs, the CAS Dean’s Office, the Provost’s Office and the Chancellor’s Office demonstrates a lack of awareness on our campus of federal civil rights laws and Title IX’s prohibition of sex discrimination. Any efforts to advance “diversity, equity and inclusion” on our campus should be aware of the history on our campus of non-compliance with federal civil rights laws. Even though we hear about our commitment to “diversity, equity and inclusion,” universities including UM frequently practice the exact opposite: “uniformity, inequity and exclusion” when it comes to illegal single-sex, female-only programs, scholarships, awards, initiatives, camps, clubs, events, etc. like the GEMS program that illegally exclude (or attempted to exclude) non-female students, faculty and/or staff.

Subsequently, based on a Title IX complaint I filed with the Office for Civil Rights, the Department of Education has opened a federal investigation of civil rights violations at the University of Michigan for more than 50 discriminatory programs on all three campuses that potentially violate Title IX’s prohibition of sex discrimination, and that investigation is ongoing. By exposing Title IX violations at more than 100 other universities (including UM), it is my mission to advance civil rights for all persons in higher education and end the hypocritical, double standard for enforcement of sex discrimination that has prevailed for so many decades at colleges and universities in the US.

One way that universities like UM can demonstrate their commitment to “diversity, equity and inclusion” is by demonstrating their commitment to enforcing Title IX’s prohibition of sex discrimination. Too often, universities including UM have not vigorously enforced Title IX as they are legally required to do, or at least they have only selectively enforced Title IX, despite large staffs of diversity officers and staffs (now approaching 100 employees at UM). And since UM has frequently violated its own Nondiscrimination Policy by offering single-sex, female only programs, a renewed commitment to nondiscrimination based on sex might be warranted as part of the DEI Committee.

In addition, if a concern of the DEI Committee is to address the challenges that underrepresented minorities face in higher education, I would suggest that the challenges of men – a significantly underrepresented minority at UM-Flint — be acknowledged and addressed. For example, based on Fall 2019 enrollment at UM-Flint, there are currently 175 female students for every 100 male students. A question for the DEI Committee: What if anything should be done to address the fact that men are a significantly underrepresented minority at UM-Flint?

Thanks for considering some the efforts I am making to advance “civil rights for all” and “Title IX for all” at both UM-Flint and in higher education in general, as we advance our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion at UM-Flint for all constituencies, hopefully including constituencies that are significantly underrepresented.

MP: I don’t think those are exactly the types of contributions to diversity that UM is looking for… Buy hey, they asked me and I responded!!