A legal advocacy group has accused SUNY-affiliated Alfred University of illegally banning white students from a “BIPOC” arts residency program on its upstate campus.
The Equal Protection Project filed a scathing civil rights complaint with the US Department of Education claiming “Alfred’s BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, People of Color] Summer Arts Residency” is a violation of federal and state law — plain and simple.
“Creating educational opportunities based on race, color, or national origin is offensive and violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, as well as New York State law,” said William Jacobson, founder of the group.
“Such race-based programming also violates Alfred’s own non-discrimination policies,” Jacobson added. “We are asking Alfred to live up to the law and its own rules, and remove the discriminatory eligibility barriers it has erected.”
The residency, administered through Alfred’s School of Art & Design + Performing Arts Division, has been held since 2023 and is a four-week program, running from June 23 to July 18 this year.
This year’s application period ended Feb. 1, with accepted students handed grants up to $2,500 along with complimentary furnished one-bedroom housing on the Allegany County campus, bordering the Finger Lakes region.
The residency “provides early-career BIPOC artists with time and space to dive deeply into their artistic research and practice, and creative endeavors,” the university says.
Jacobson said excluding white students from a program is no different than discriminating against Blacks, Latinos or other students .
“Racial and ethnic discrimination is wrong and unlawful no matter which race or ethnicity is targeted or benefits,” he said.
“Where were the administrators and staff whose jobs supposedly are devoted to preventing discrimination? Why was there no intervention to uphold the legally required equal access to education?”
EPP has filed similar discrimination complaints or lawsuits against the New York State Education Department, and the State University of New York campuses including SUNY-Albany, SUNY-Buffalo Law and Fordham University.
Alfred is a private school but runs the New York State College of Ceramics, a SUNY program.
The US Education Department said it “does not confirm” receipts of a civil rights complaint unless it decides to open a formal investigation. Alfred University is reviewing the complaint, a spokesperson said.
The complaint is believed to be the first filed against a New York college since President Trump took office and issued a series of executive orders seeking to outlaw diversity, equity and inclusion programs, also called DEI.
Since Trump took office, the department announced that it’s launching an investigation into five colleges, including Columbia University, over alleged “widespread” antisemitic harassment following the tumultuous spring term where anti-Israel protests escalated on campuses countrywide.
Trump said he’d like to close the department and transfer its functions to other agencies — something likely to require approval of Congress, which created the agency under then-President Jimmy Carter.
Department of Government Efficiency head Elon Musk is going through the education department to look for cost cuts.
But conservative legal scholars and Jewish civil rights groups are hoping the agency will move more quickly to push colleges to end DEI programs and aggressively investigate complaints of antisemitism.
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