PR: The 85 Worst Universities in the Nation Offering Scholarships that Discriminate on the Basis of Sex

Contact: Rebecca Stewart

Telephone: 513-479-3335

Email: info@saveservices.org

The 85 Worst Universities in the Nation Offering Scholarships that Discriminate on the Basis of Sex

WASHINGTON / March 16, 2020 – The Title IX Equity Project today is releasing a list of 85 colleges and universities in the nation with severe violations of the federal Title IX law that bars sex discrimination in schools. These 85 institutions offer at least 10 more scholarships for female students, compared to the number of scholarships for male students. The 85 colleges are located in 34 states across the nation: AL, AZ, CA, CO, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, IA, KS, KY, LA, MD, MA, MN, MS, MO, NV, NH, NJ, NM, NY, NC, ND, OR, PA, RI, SD, TN, TX, UT, VA, WA, WI, and WY.

One of the worst offenders in the country is the University of Missouri – Columbia, which offers 70 scholarships for female students, and one for male students. The 70 female-only scholarships address a broad range of academic fields, including medicine, education, journalism, art, and other areas. The sole scholarship for male students, the Eric G. Rowe Scholarship Fund, is reserved for “deserving farm boys” who plan to attend the university’s School of Agriculture (1).

On September 20, 2019 the SAVE Title IX Equity Project sent a letter to Chancellor Alexander Cartwright listing the discriminatory scholarships and requesting a substantive response. The University never replied. On January 28, 2020, the Title IX Equity Project filed a formal complaint with the federal Office for Civil Rights, alleging a willful breach of federal non-discrimination requirements. The decision whether to open a formal federal investigation is pending.

Such disparities not only violate federal law, they offend basic notions of fairness. At the University of Missouri – Columbia, female students outnumber males, 11,789 to 10,695 (2). Nationwide, 56% of undergraduate students are female, and 44% are male (3).

The listing of all 85 universities is available online (4). The federal Office for Civil Rights is currently investigating over 80 sex-discrimination complaints that were filed by parties alleging discrimination against male students (5).

University of Michigan-Flint professor Mark Perry has commented ironically, “universities would never tolerate any special preferences for men or discrimination against women, but on the other hand, they not only tolerate discrimination against men and special preferences for women, but they actively promote, fund and endorse illegal discrimination…The illegal discriminatory programs are not being corrected internally despite huge staffs of diversity officers.” (6)

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