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Freshmen females have opportunities not available to male peers, complaint states

The University of Connecticut faces a federal civil rights complaint for an “innovators” program that is only open to females.

The public university in Storrs operates a “First-Year Women Werth Innovators cohort” which includes money, networking, and mentoring opportunities for aspiring entrepreneurs. While men can apply for similar programs as sophomores and juniors, there is no equivalent for freshmen males.

Civil rights activist Mark Perry shared with The College Fix a copy of the recent complaint he filed with the Department of Education. He says the program “illegally excludes and discriminates against non-female, first-year students based on their sex and gender identity.”

He cites several examples of how the program’s language is only directed at women.

“1st-year women receive an additional $4k paid summer internship to develop their idea,” one section states.

“Since 2020, UConn’s Peter J. Werth Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation has worked to address head-on some of the challenges for women entrepreneurs by offering critical support to young women founders at the start of their entrepreneurial journeys,” a Sep. 4 news release states.

“In violation of Title IX the University’s ‘First-Year Women Werth Innovators program’ illegally excludes and discriminates against the University’s non-female first-year students,” Perry wrote to the Office for Civil Rights in Boston on Tuesday.

“Further, the University does not offer an equivalent ‘First-Year Men Werth Innovators program’ to equitably and legally accommodate first-year male students with an interest in entrepreneurship,” Perry wrote in his email. “Please investigate the University for illegal sex discrimination in violation of Title IX. The remedy I seek is for the University to open the ‘First-Year Women Werth Innovators program’ to all first-year students regardless of sex.”

Perry told The Fix the complaint has been docketed.

The retired University of Michigan-Flint professor also shared a “courtesy copy” with the university’s leadership, including its counsel.

He told the university it is his “professional opinion” the program “is legally indefensible and unable to survive an upcoming federal investigation” by OCR.

Perry said he has filed “nearly 1,000” civil rights complaints “for more than 2,000 violations of Title VI and Title IX.”

“I am confident that if this illegal program had been reviewed by your Office of the General Counsel for legal compliance with Title IX before it was implemented, promoted, and offered, your legal staff would not have approved a discriminatory program that is so clearly illegal in violation of Title IX,” Perry said.

This is not the only UConn initiative to face legality questions.

Recently, the university made an edit to an engineering program geared only toward women, following inquiries from The Fix about the legality of the program.

MORE: Common App ‘legal sex’ question creates confusion for women’s college

IMAGE: University of Connecticut

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