by Cole Levine
Michigan Technological University has seven federally funded programs and scholarships that do not enforce Title IX’s prohibition of sex discrimination against men, alleges a complaint filed with the Office for Civil Rights.
It was filed March 2 by University of Michigan-Flint economics Professor Mark Perry.
The complaint was influenced, Perry said, by Michigan Tech associate professor of electrical and computer engineering Jeffrey Burl’s recent letter. In it, Burl alleges he has been “systematically discriminated against” as a white male at MTU during his 28-year career there.
Perry told The College Fix via email that he congratulated Burl by email for “courage and bravery standing up to the woke, virtue-signaling mob at MTU.”
Perry registered his Title IX complaint against Michigan Tech with the Cleveland Office for Civil Rights. He told The Fix the office acknowledged receipt of his complaint and assigned it a case number on March 3.
“That part was fast. The evaluation process and the subsequent investigation will take a much longer period of time,” Perry said.
Reached for comment, a Michigan Tech spokesperson asked for a copy of the complaint, but then stopped responding to requests for comment from The College Fix.
The complaint cites four programs and three scholarships at MTU that appear to bar men from eligibility and admission.
The programs are Junior Women in Engineering, Women in Computer Science, Women in Engineering, and Women in Automotive Engineering. It also names the Joyce Caylor Lyth Memorial Endowed Scholarship, Linda J. Horton CPA Scholarship, and the Pioneering Women in Business Scholarship.
The programs are offered to “smart,” “talented” and “young” women. Scholarships go to female “residents,” “students” and “leaders.” None are offered to men, the complaint says.
Title IX states in part that “no person shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.”
Perry said he has filed “300 Title IX complaints against colleges and universities for more than 1,000 violations of Title IX’s prohibition of sex discrimination, including sex discrimination against men.”
They have resulted in over “150 federal civil rights investigations and 40 resolutions” in Perry’s favor, the professor said via email.
This “means that universities have either terminated their discriminatory, single-sex, female-only, no males allowed programs or converted discriminatory single-sex, female-only programs to coeducational programs open to all genders,” he said.
“As a condition of receiving federal financial assistance, universities like MTU have to regularly certify to the Department of Education that they are enforcing Title IX’s prohibition of sex discrimination, including discrimination against men. And yet universities like MTU routinely discriminate on the basis of sex, and illegally provide special preferences for women and discriminate against men in violation of Title IX,” Perry said.
“It’s always difficult to know whether universities like MTU know they are violating federal civil rights laws and they just don’t care and don’t expect to get caught, or whether they aren’t even aware that their programs violate Title IX because almost every university is engaged in similar violations. Either way, it’s inexcusable that they think they’re above the law or are ignorant of federal civil rights laws.”
As for Burl’s letter, it criticized “racist sentiments” and implications that whites and locals are racist within MTU’s faculty senate Resolution 41-21: “Embodying University Values: Condemning Hate Speech, White Supremacy, and Ethnically and Racially Motivated Intolerance.”
Burl wrote he had to refrain from applying to a department chair position to not get involved with MTU’s “illegal hiring activities.” He raised concern over departmental racial and gender quotas not in conformity with past Supreme Court judgments on affirmative action.
Burl’s complaint requests an apology but instead has provoked a petition demanding he be fired.
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College Fix contributor Cole Levine is a sophomore at the University of Texas-El Paso studying political science. He blogs at College Conservative Soapbox. He enjoys playing flamenco guitar, horseback riding, elk hunting, and fishing small lakes in New Mexico.
Photo “Michigan Technological University” by Tony Webster. CC BY 2.0.
