Stanford University Illegally Discriminated Against Whites and Asians Complaint Says

The “white skin privileges” that liberals love to prattle about don’t seem to carry much currency at California universities as one school after another gets smacked with federal discrimination complaints for casually running programs for minorities only.

Now, the Arlington-Virginia based advocacy group Defending Education has filed a complaint against Stanford University over its teacher training program for “persons of color” only.

Defending Education vice-president Sarah Perry told the California Globe that, “Stanford may be playing the waiting game with the Trump administration, thinking that they can run race-based programming as long as they don’t get caught.  That kind of commitment to “equity” over merit is a scourge on higher education generally.”

Since 2022, Stanford’s National Board Resource Center has had what it calls a “BIPOC cohort” for  teachers seeking to take the national board certification exam. BIPOC is the woke acronym for Black, Indigenous and People of Color.

The fully-funded program, run in conjunction with the California Teachers Association, offers teachers counseling and mentorship. Teachers who pass the board certification exam can get higher salaries and easier career advancement.

But the program only accepts applicants if they “identify as a person of color,” says the complaint filed with the United States Department of Education Office for Civil Rights.

“Based on the eligibility criteria clearly stated on Stanford’s BIPOC cohort webpage, Stanford has adopted, implemented, and enforced a racially discriminatory program and it maintains this program through the present day. That is incompatible with the ‘color-blind’ mandate of Title VI and the Equal Protection Clause.”

Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination by programs that receive federal money.

Stanford apparently pulled down the website for the program shortly after the complaint was filed last month.

But Sarah Perry said this week that the program remains active and Stanford is blatantly violating the law.

“According to the California Teachers Association, the BIPOC cohort program is still active throughout the 2025-2026 school year, and to our knowledge, Stanford has no interest in ending this racially discriminatory program,” she emailed. “While we hope Staford will cease discriminating on its own before the Department of Education investigates, there are certainly no guarantees. Too many of America’s elite higher education institutions believe they can simply outlast the Administration and cling to their race essentialism until it sunsets. Our organization exists to ensure they don’t. The Supreme Court has clarified time and again that eliminating race discrimination means eliminating all of it. Stanford would do well to remember that.”

But Stanford University’s Luisa Rapport says the program is being phased out. She denies that Stanford ever discriminated.

Her argument seems to be that the “BIPOC  cohort” was just one component of a system open to all teachers regardless of race.

Separate but equal?

“Stanford University is committed to meeting its obligations under the federal Civil Rights Act and maintaining an environment free of prohibited discrimination,” she emailed. “The cohort program has been one program within a larger effort of the National Board Resource Center at Stanford Graduate School of Education. The Center is open to any primary or secondary teacher, regardless of their race, who is pursuing the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards Certification. All teachers in the Stanford NBRC get access to mentors, research, seminars, and other resources to help them pursue certification.”