Reed Rubinstein, senior vice president of America First Legal (AFL), says this case is about a federally funded university engaging in a years-long pattern and practice of discrimination against white male scholars and law professors.
"Under the rubric of affirmative action, Northwestern essentially would hire based on immutable characteristics -- that is to say the race and sex of job applicants -- rather than merit -- which is to say their classroom performance and their scholarship," Rubinstein explains.
Through an organization called "Faculty, Alumni, and Students Opposed to Racial Preferences," a suit was brought to stop what the attorney calls a "very pernicious, corrosive, instructive practice." The complaint, he says, tells the "quite alarming" stories of prominent names in the legal world like First Amendment scholar Eugene Volokh, who applied to teach at Northwestern and was disqualified simply because of his race and sex.
"Scholars who, for example, in one case plagiarized material for an exam were hired over truly outstanding candidates simply because they checked a particular box that the Northwestern law school management wanted to have checked," Rubinstein reiterates.
AFL points out that federal law prohibits universities that accept federal funds from discriminating on account of race or sex, and it is fighting to hold once respected and prestigious universities like Northwestern accountable for flouting federal civil rights statutes.
