Richard Lowery, an associate professor of finance at the University of Texas at Austin has filed a class-action lawsuit against Texas A&M University, two university officials, and its board of regents. Dr. Lowery claims that a faculty fellowship aimed at increasing diversity discriminates against White and Asian men. Professor Lowery is represented by America First Legal, a conservative nonprofit organization led by former officials from the Trump administration.
In June, Texas A&M announced in an email to all of its deans that, based on its designation as a Hispanic Serving Institution by the United States Department of Education, it had been “charged with expanding the capacity of low-income, first-generation Hispanic students, and other underserved students and their communities.” Texas A&M stated that “increasing opportunities for underserved students to interact and engage with faculty that share their ethnic, life, and cultural experiences are essential to achieving this goal. The presence of faculty of color is also integral to the University’s mission to provide the highest quality of undergraduate and graduate education and develop new understandings through research and creativity.”
Texas A&M created the “ACES Plus” Fellowship – ACES standing for “Accountability, Climate, Equity, and Scholarship”– dedicating $2 million dollars to provide matching base salary and benefits for “new mid-career and senior tenure-track hires from underrepresented minority groups, that contribute to moving the structural composition of our faculty towards parity with that of the State of Texas.”
The lawsuit alleges that “these discriminatory, illegal, and anti-meritocratic practices have been egged on by woke ideologues who populate the so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion offices at public and private universities.”
Stephen Miller, president of America First Legal stated that “Texas A&M is hiring — and excluding — professors solely due to the physical appearance of their skin or the ancestry of their family tree. This is vile and outrageous. We must extract the poison of bigotry coursing deep through the leadership of Texas A&M and restore civil rights and equality for all. Our lawsuit will send tremors through our corrupt institutions of ‘higher learning’ making clear that racial discrimination will be met with righteous legal action in our courts of law.”
Unfortunately, the lawsuit has merit. Affirmative action was set up for the African American descendants of slaves. Unfortunately, when White women and Hispanics, etc were added to the list to compete in the same pool as African American descendants of slaves, the latter said nothing–even though Hispanic leaders are on record saying that they refuse to aly “with the negro”, and even though many Hispanics and other non Blacks are on record filing litigation to be designated as White. Unfortunately, again, Black America has no leadership. The Congressional Black caucus represents the Democrat Party. The Hispanic caucus represents Hispanic people. The notion that Hispanic Serving Institutions are some how mimicking Historically Black Colleges and Universities is another abomination where the HSIs are taking funds away from HBCUs. But I will never forget the image of the late John Lewis going to the Southern border to cry for Hispanic children while at the same time a pregnant Black mother in New York, who was standing in a welfare line with baby in arms, got tired and sat on the floor and was arrested and dragged from the premises. Unfortunately, again, the flat refusal of Black academics and other Black cognoscenti to say the word “Black” instead of “people of color” lie at the heart of this issue. What should have been policy aimed at righting the historic wrongs against Black became policy for “people of color” and “diversity” and the net result is now when any lawsuit alleging reverse discrimination is filed the face of the target is Black even though the majority of the beneficiaries are non Black.
We need to be direct about using “Black” when we mean “Black.” Once “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” began to include sexual orientation, gender preference, and any old “people of color,” the special situation of blacks became so diluted that success can be proclaimed for a DEI initiative even where Blacks continue to be left behind.
Hey Jim,
You’re analysis is 100 percent correct. What needs to happen is that so-called native born Black Americans need to draw the “line in the sand” and tell the American people and the world that ‘we’re a dam Separate Group from this point forward. As such, when local, state, and federal policies are introduced and enacted, it must be specifically for native born Black Americans (i.e., “Foundational Black American[those who lineage can be traced back before the 1870 Census).
Moving forward, the DEI and multicultural paradigm has literally dismantled any substantive Black gains within higher education because too many so-called Black academics are more concerned about placating their White, Asian, and Latino colleagues. All the while, native born Black Americans continue to receive the less. Black academics need to wake up.