“Northwestern University has convinced a federal judge in Chicago to toss a lawsuit filed against the school alleging it discriminates against white men in its faculty hiring process,” reports The College Fix:
The case was dismissed by U.S. District Judge Sarah Ellis, an Obama-appointee, who agreed with Northwestern’s argument that the plaintiff organization, Faculty, Alumni, and Students Opposed to Racial Preferences, lacked standing because it failed to show its members had actually applied for open positions at the law school…
Despite the loss in court, Northwestern University in December agreed to pay $75 million to resolve a federal anti-discrimination probe. As part of the settlement, the university agreed to end all affirmative action policies….
The lawsuit began in July of 2024….In the complaint, the group claimed that a hiring mandate established over a decade ago directs Northwestern’s law school to “intentionally and consciously discriminate in favor of black, Hispanic, Asian, female, homosexual, and transgender faculty candidates, and against white men who are heterosexual and non-transgender.”
One of the individuals cited in the complaint is Eugene Volokh, a distinguished professor at the UCLA School of Law and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He has taught classes on subjects including First Amendment law, criminal law, and firearms regulation policy, and has authored multiple textbooks and more than 100 law review articles. FASORP argued that during the 2022-23 academic year, Volokh contacted Northwestern and expressed interest in a possible job, receiving support from members of the school faculty. However, “the appointments committee that year was chaired by former Dean Dan Rodriguez, who repeatedly pushed for race-based hirings as dean and refused to even invite Professor Volokh to interview.” For this reason, they believe that “Professor Volokh’s candidacy was never even presented to the Northwestern faculty for a vote, while candidates with mediocre and undistinguished records were interviewed and received offers because of their preferred demographic characteristics.”…FASORP had argued that “Numerous professors at Northwestern, including the current Vice Dean Emily Kadens, openly said that Professor Volokh would have been hired at Northwestern had he been anything other than a white man.”
The lawsuit also alleged that Ernest Young, the Alston & Bird Distinguished Professor of Law at Duke Law School, was rejected due to being a white man. “Many on Northwestern’s faculty wanted to hire Professor Young. But the Rodriguez-chaired appointments committee blocked him and refused to advance his candidacy to the faculty for a vote, despite his stellar credentials and qualifications.”
In other news, a federal judge has ruled that the American Bar Association can be sued for its race-based scholarships.
