JOHN RIGOLIZZO – RUTGERS UNIVERSITY •JUNE 10, 2021
‘MIT is apparently either unaware of federal civil rights laws, or it thinks it’s above the law’
A complaint has been leveled against the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for 27 alleged violations of Title VI and Title IX of the Civil Rights Act.
The complaint, authored by University of Michigan-Flint economics Professor Mark Perry, was filed with the Boston-based Office of Civil Rights in late May.
Of the 27 MIT programs cited in the complaint, 24 are alleged to be in violation of Title IX, which protects against discrimination on the basis of sex in schools.
Two other MIT programs are alleged to be in violation of Title VI, which protects against discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin.
And one program is accused by Perry of violating both laws.
Perry has made a habit of filing Civil Rights complaints against public universities, and has filed 326 of this nature since 2016.
But he noted in an email to The College Fix that MIT’s 27 alleged violations “sets a new record for the greatest number of violations I’ve found at a single college or university.”
The complaint came in at 2,300 words and six pages and Perry said there may even be “additional violations that weren’t uncovered.”
“MIT is apparently either unaware of federal civil rights laws, or it thinks it’s above the law,” Perry told The Fix. “Either way [it’s] a pretty sad indictment of MIT.”
Most of the alleged complaints targeted programs that benefited only women and excluded men, such as scholarships, study groups, career networking, graduate-level groups, educational seminars and similar efforts. Several of the programs cited in Perry’s complaint are for middle and high school female students only.
For the Title VI complaints, one benefitted entrepreneurs who are Black, Indigenous and People of Color, or BIPOC, and another is a professional fund for LGBTQ students of color.
The complaint that listed both Title IX and Title VI is MIT’s Women of Color Professional Fund.
The College Fix reached out to MIT’s media relations department for a response to the complaint, but the department, as well as Director Kimberly Allen and Deputy Director Sarah McDonnell, did not reply to requests for comment.
As for Perry, he told The College Fix that as of this week, he has filed complaints against 326 colleges and universities for more than 1,200 Title IX and Title VI violations, and 158 of those complaints have been opened so for federal civil rights investigations, and about 50 investigations have been resolved in his favor.
Perry’s first victory came in 2016 when he successfully got a women-only study lounge changed to an all-student lounge at Michigan State.
As for MIT, Perry said he expected that MIT would “stubbornly fight” to keep its single-sex, female-only programs.
But instead, he added, MIT should either discontinue their discriminatory practices, convert them to co-educational programs for males and females, or introduce equivalent male-only programs to ensure equal access to the same opportunities and funding.