The Department of Education has announced it will investigate Princeton University after President Christopher Eisgruber wrote a letter decrying his school’s “racism” and the US’s “anti-blackness.”
A formal records request has been sent to the university to make sure they are not using racist practices and violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which says that no person “on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”
If found guilty of any misdoings, the university could therefore lose millions in funds they receive from the federal government.
The investigation was sparked after Eisgruber addressed the divisive Black Lives Matter protests raging across the US in a letter earlier this month. The letter acknowledged the “anti-black racism in America” that led to the deaths of people like Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, with Eisgruber saying it has a direct effect on the university.
“Racism and the damage it does to people of color persist at Princeton,” he continued, adding that “racist assumptions” are “embedded in the structures of the university itself.” In his letter, Eisguiber promised a series of policy changes, including efforts to create diversity quotas for students and faculty.
In the Department of Education’s letter to the school, which was obtained by The Washington Examiner, they say it is the “admitted racism” in Eisgruber’s letter that has spurred the investigation.
“Based on its admitted racism, the US Department of Education is concerned Princeton’s nondiscrimination and equal opportunity assurances in its Program Participation Agreements from at least 2013 to the present may have been false,” the letter reads.
The department demanded all records related to the university president’s letter and a “spreadsheet identifying each person who has, on the ground of race, color, or national origin” been discriminated against at the university.
The fact that Eisgruber’s woke letter — which was celebrated by many BLM supporters at the time of its release — is now backfiring spectacularly on him, with potential legal consequences, has some conservatives celebrating on social media.
“This is absolutely delicious,” reporter Bari Weiss tweeted.
“Wouldn’t it be amazing if we got to shutter the universities based on their own declarations of their alleged ‘systemic racism?’” author Dave Reaboi tweeted.
Princeton’s obvious next step is to assert to the federal government that it isn’t racist while reassuring students and faculty that it is.
This is just the best. https://t.co/ZhsNfCJ8fW
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