EXCLUSIVE – Yale University is facing a civil rights complaint due to its affiliation with a training program that restricts eligibility to non-White applicants.

The Equal Protection Project of the Legal Insurrection Foundation is filing a civil rights complaint against the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry (AAAP) and Yale School of Medicine "for their administration and promotion" of the REACH (Recognizing and Eliminating Disparities in AddictiThe program makes clear that applicants must be U.S. on through Culturally informed Healthcare) program.citizens and come from "a racial/ethnic minoritized population," including "Black, African, or African American, non-Caucasian Hispanic or Latinx, American Indian or Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander."

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"Regardless of AAAP and Yale’s reasons for offering, promoting, and administering such a discriminatory fellowship, they are violating Title VI by doing so. It does not matter if the recipient of federal funding discriminates in order to advance a benign ‘intention’ or ‘motivation,’" the complaint states.

REACH selects scholars for a year-long training session that aims to improve the care of racial and ethnic groups or "underrepresented minorities" with "substance use disorders." REACH scholars receive up to $104,000 and travel accommodations and have access to mentors. 

The fellowship eligibility criteria are discriminatory, the civil rights complaint argues. It argues further that since REACH is a health program, it violates section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act and, because Yale and AAAP receive federal funds, they are subject to violations of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

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The Yale School of Medicine's website describes the REACH Program as "a year-long training program designed to supplement the education of medical students, residents, fellows, and allied health professional trainees in ways to improve health outcomes for racial and ethnic underrepresented minority patients with substance use disorders."

"The overall goal of the REACH training program is to: (1) increase the overall number of racial and ethnic underrepresented minority (URM) addiction specialists in the Addiction Psychiatry and Addiction Medicine workforce, and (2) increase the number of addiction specialists adequately trained to work with racial and ethnic URM patients with substance use disorders."

Per the Yale Daily News, the Ivy League institution received nearly $900 million in federal grants and contracts in the 2024 fiscal year to fund research and financial aid.

Furthermore, most of Yale's federal funding came from the National Institutes of Health. The institution awarded a total of $643,720,557 in grants and contracts. Yale also received federal funding from the Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Education, according to the Yale Daily News report.

"AAAP and Yale’s explicit race, ethnicity, and/or national origin program requirements are presumptively invalid, and since there is no compelling government justification for such invidious discrimination, their offering, promotion, and administration of these programs violates state and civil rights statutes and constitutional protection guarantees," the complaint states.

William A. Jacobson, founder of the Equal Protection Project, told Fox News Digital that "HHS provided a grant to AAAP, which partnered with Yale, to improve minority community health outcomes."

"Such programming must never be permitted to cross the line into discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin. This line, unfortunately, appears to have been breached at AAAP and Yale by racially-restrictive eligibility criteria," he added.

Neither Yale nor the AAAP immediately responded to Fox News Digital's request for comment.

The civil rights complaint comes after President Donald Trump's feud with Harvard over alleged discriminatory admissions policies and antisemitism on campus.

The Trump administration reportedly summoned the Department of Justice to investigate whether Harvard’s admissions policies comply with a Supreme Court ruling that ended affirmative action admission policies.