A retired economics professor has filed a civil-rights complaint against the University of Oregon over its gender-affirming support fund for transgender students. Mark Perry, a Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan, filed the complaint with the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights alleging a violation of the federal law against sex discrimination in education, Title IX.
The fund earmarks money for transition-related expenses for transgender students. “I allege that the LGBTQIA+ Student Emergency Fund for LGBTQIA+ students at the University of Oregon is an illegal violation of Title IX because it discriminates against non-LGBTQIA+ students on the basis of their sexual orientation and gender identity,” Perry explained.
The fact that Perry’s complaint alleges discrimination against a majority group (non-LGBTQIA+ students), rather than a minority group, is not a basis for dismissing it. The Supreme Court’s Bostock decision says that federal laws against sex discrimination also ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The Supreme Court has also said that laws against discrimination ban not just discrimination against minorities, but also, generally speaking, discrimination against males or whites. For example, it ruled in favor of a man who who sought to be admitted to a university for women, in Mississippi University for Women v. Hogan (1982), finding that his exclusion violated the Constitution. It also summarily affirmed a ruling striking down a state’s preferences for women and minorities in government contracts, in Milliken v. Michigan Road Builders (1989). So Perry’s complaint might have merit.
“The message I am trying to send to colleges and universities is that federal civil rights laws protect all students including students in what are today’s preferred and favored groups on campus that include women, blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, BIPOCs, and LGBTQIAs as well as students in unpreferred and unfavored groups on campus including students who are male, white, Asian, heterosexuals and cisgender,” he added. “To provide emergency funding exclusively to just one group of students based on their sexual orientation or gender identity is unlawful, objectionable and offensive.”
The University of Oregon provides a fund set aside for transgender-identified students to receive “gender-affirming resources.”
“The LGBTQIA+ Student Emergency Fund is an opportunity for LGBTQIA+ students at the University of Oregon to request emergency funding one time during each academic year to pay for items that impact their sexuality or gender identity,” it says.
The fund is earmarked for “trans, non-binary, and gender-expansive students at the University of Oregon,” to get “emergency funding for financial support accessing gender-affirming resources, products, support, and care.” Although recipients of this fund do not receive tuition or textbook support, they are also encouraged to apply to the UO Basic Needs Assistance program.
Perry notes that he earlier discovered similar funds at Georgia Tech and Otterbein University and filed Title IX complaints against them as well. He also plans to take action against Rutgers University, Boise State, Indiana University, and other colleges with such preferential programs.
In addition to being a Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan, Perry is also a senior fellow at Do No Harm. He has filed 841 civil rights complaints against over 750 institutions of higher education in the past four years. The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has opened 370 investigations into his complaints and resolved 335 of those complaints, a majority being resolved in his favor in whole or in part.
