Civil Rights Complaint Filed Against Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and the Montefiore Medical Center

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Oct 06, 2010, 06:00 ET

WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today, the Project on Fair Representation (POFR) announces the filing of a complaint against the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and its academic partner, the Montefiore Medical Center, for their violation of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. section 2000d. The complaint was lodged with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights.

The complaint asserts that both institutions are violating the law because they have restricted admissions to their Summer Enrichment & Mentoring Program (Monte-HOP) to only African Americans, Hispanic-Latino-Americans and American Indian/Native Americans.

"Racially and ethnically exclusive programs such as this one are clearly forbidden by our civil rights laws," said Edward Blum, director of the Project on Fair Representation." "It is noteworthy that the application form excludes all Asian categories."

The complaint letter can be found at: www.projectonfairrepresentation.org.

During the last 10 years or so, dozens of colleges and universities including MIT, Princeton, Southern Illinois University, and Harvard have opened enrichment programs such as this one to all needy students, regardless of their race or ethnicity. The Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Education has issued a statement that "programs that use race or national origin as sole eligibility criteria are extremely difficult to defend."

"We applaud Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Medical Center for sponsoring programs like Monte-HOP, but they should be made available to all students, regardless of their skin color or ancestry," Blum added.

POFR has requested that the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights compel these institutions to open this program to all students regardless of skin color or ancestry or face a cut off of all federal monies as the statute allows.

Founded in 2005, the Project on Fair Representation is a not-for-profit legal defense fund designed to support litigation that challenges racial and ethnic classifications and preferences in state and federal courts.