Harvard sponsored 'race-based' programming, gets hit with complaint

A professor filed a civil rights complaint against Harvard University after it hosted events that discriminated on the basis of race.

University of Michigan professor Mark Perry filed a complaint with the Boston Office of Civil Rights in response to Harvard’s T. H. Chan School of Public Health sponsoring separate “Race-Based Affinity Group” reflective sessions for White and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, or People of Color) faculty and staff. 

Perry found that the events violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which states that discrimination “on the ground of race, color, or national origin” is illegal for any program receiving federal dollars.

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“These University events described above illegally discriminate on the basis of race and skin color in violation of Title VI,” wrote Perry in a letter shared with Campus Reform, “because the University is treating faculty and staff differently on the basis of skin color and race when determining eligibility for those racially exclusive, racially discriminatory ‘reflective sessions.’”

Perry adds that the events are “subjecting individual faculty and staff to illegal segregation and separate treatment based on their skin color and race.”

Perry told Campus Reform that Harvard is acting inconsistently with its own rules against discrimination — a practice that the school calls “unlawful and intolerable to the University.” 

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“Harvard is engaged in a new form of racial discrimination that is now systemic throughout the entire university in the form of ‘affinity groups’ that violate both federal civil rights laws and the university’s own anti-discrimination policy,” Perry explained. “Harvard, like many other universities, is now increasingly offering and promoting programs based on ‘affinity groups’ that are segregating students, faculty, and staff on the basis of skin color, race, and national origin.”

Perry added that “old-fashioned Jim Crow racial segregation” is being repackaged by universities to “allegedly promote goals like ‘social justice’ and ‘racial healing.’”

Campus Reform reached out to Harvard University for comment; this article will be updated accordingly.

Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @ajmunguia23