An advocacy group blasted the State University of New York at Albany for allegedly engaging in racial discrimination by participating in a library internship program available only to black students.
The Equal Protection Project sent a “cease and desist” letter to SUNY that claimed their paid summer internship at two City of Albany public library branches violated federal civil rights laws.
“As the [Touhey Library Equity Fellowship] is racially exclusionary, we write to put you on notice that this program violates a variety of federal, state and local civil rights laws, as well state and federal constitutional prohibitions on race-based discrimination,” said William Jacobson, a Cornell University law professor and president of the group.
Jacobson said the Equal Protection Project opposes racial preference policies in academia.
The group received a tip about SUNY Albany’s role in starting and promoting the library internship program.
According to the UAlbany’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion’s webpage, the TLEF was created in 2020 out of a “partnership” between the university and the Albany Public Library and designed to offer a fellowship limited to “students of color” in the university’s College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity.
“As recently as February 23 and March 29, 2023, respectively, UAlbany was actively
advertising and promoting this racially discriminatory fellowship on its Career and Professional
Development webpage, two of the APL’s branches, and is available only to black graduates of library school programs,” the group said in its cease and desist letter.
The internship program is now open to black students from any college, not just SUNY Albany, according to an application posted by Touhey Fellowship.
Jacobson sent a similar cease and desist letter to the Albany Public Library.
“This program discriminates on the basis of race. There is no good form of racism, supporting one racial group over another,” Jacobson told The Post Thursday.
“Why does SUNY think it’s OK to discriminate on the basis of race and ethnicity? This fellowship program is only open to members of a single race. That’s clearly unconstitutional. This is exactly what you’re not supposed to do.”
Jacobson said his group will take legal action unless the applications for the library internship program become open to all students.
It’s just the latest diversity controversy at SUNY, which beginning in the fall will require incoming freshmen at all of its 64 public colleges to take and pass a new diversity-themed class to earn a diploma.
SUNY said the course promotes diversity and tolerance while critics claim the course itself is racist by promoting victimhood and injecting woke ideology into regular coursework.
SUNY-Albany Thursday sought to downplay its role in the black-only internship program.
“We’ve received the letter and are in the process of reviewing it. In the meantime, I can confirm that the University at Albany is not involved in the administration of this fellowship program,” said Albany U. spokesman Jordan Carleo-Evangelist.
The Albany Public Library was not immediately available for comment.
But Andrea Nicolay, the Albany Library’s executive director, previously told the Times Union she was surprised by the accusations of discrimination because the internship program reserved for black students is paid for with private funds from the Touhey Foundation, not public dollars.
“It definitely felt out of the blue,” she said. “However, we’re taking the letter seriously. We want to confirm the internship is something we can continue to support without violating the law, obviously.”
She said hiring black librarians is a good thing for the library.
“It couldn’t be understated, the importance of diversity,” Nocolay said in the Times Union interview.