There seems to be zero evidence that the white plaintiff, UT-Austin professor Richard Lowery, has faced any discrimination. But, clearly, the aim is to get the case to the U.S. Supreme Court in the hope that the right-wing extremists who control it will agree that a diversity-hiring program discriminates against white men.
From The Texas Tribune:
In the lawsuit, Lowery claims that a new fellowship program announced this summer within Texas A&M’s faculty hiring program called the Accountability, Climate, Equity and Scholarship Faculty Fellows Program, or ACES, violates Title VI and Title IX of the federal Civil Rights Act as well as the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.
While the ACES program focuses on hiring recently graduated doctoral students who want to enter academia, the new ACES Plus Program focuses on “mid-career and senior tenure-track hires from underrepresented minority groups, that contribute to moving the structural composition of our faculty towards parity with that of the State of Texas.” It sets aside $2 million over the next two fiscal years to help match a fellow’s base salary and benefits, up to a maximum of $100,000.
According to Texas A&M’s announcement of the new fellowship program on July 8, the university identified underrepresented groups as African Americans, Hispanic and Latino Americans, Native Americans, Alaskan Natives and Native Hawaiians.
To Lowery and his diversity-hating lawyers, “parity with that of the State of Texas” is a threat to whites’ civil rights. Oh, and to Asians', too (because nobody should think Lowery, et al. only care about white people).
It’s not as if whites are under-represented on the A&M faculty. Au contraire! The Tribune reports that during the fall 2021 semester, 2,658 of a total 4,869 faculty were white, 180 were Black and 335 were Hispanic. But a Supreme Court that thinks it’s fine to force women to give birth may well agree that white men sorely need civil rights protection. Oh, yeah, and Asians, too.
Lowery’s lawyers want an injunction against A&M and also a court monitor appointed to oversee the diversity office and faculty hiring. Because who knows what kind of white-oppression Texas A&M might get up to otherwise? In addition to America First Legal, the group founded by Miller, Lowery is also represented by Jonathan Mitchell, a former solicitor general for Texas and the legal architect of the state’s six-week abortion ban, The Tribune notes.
