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Re: A Microsoft Fellowship Caps the Number of White and Asian Applicants. Lawyers Say That's Illegal.

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In article <t1at50$2tpfe$24@news.freedyn.de>
governor.swill@gmail.com wrote:
>
> Anti-trust time.  Break Microsoft up into 5 separate companies.
>

It’s not just Google. Microsoft is capping the number of white 
and Asian students that universities can nominate for a 
prestigious research fellowship that includes a generous $42,000 
stipend, part of a pattern of discriminatory policies sweeping 
corporate America.

The Microsoft Research Ph.D. Fellowship allows participating 
universities to nominate up to four students annually. "At least 
two" of those four nominees, per Microsoft’s provisions, should 
"self-identify as a woman, African American, Black, Hispanic, 
Latinx, Native American, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, Pacific 
Islander, Indigenous Peoples, LGBTQI+, active or veteran service 
member, and/or person with a disability."

It is illegal for companies to enter into contracts based on 
race under the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and Title VI of the 
1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits federally funded universities 
from discriminating based on race. The Microsoft fellowship 
likely violates both laws, according to Gail Heriot, a member of 
the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and a law professor at the 
University of San Diego.

A Microsoft spokesman, Rhoades Clark, declined to comment, 
telling the Washington Free Beacon that Microsoft "has nothing 
to share."

Until recently, IBM’s Ph.D. Fellowship Rewards Program used 
similar criteria. That program, which also allows four 
applicants per school, required that half of each university’s 
nominations go to "diversity candidates or underrepresented 
populations in technology."

But 24 hours after the Free Beacon contacted IBM for comment, 
the company scrubbed the quota-like language from its website, 
which now stipulates that schools "consider a diverse slate of 
candidates for the program." IBM did not respond to a request 
for comment.

The fellowships reflect the race-conscious consensus that has 
taken hold of Silicon Valley, where ostensible corporate 
competitors increasingly mimic each other’s policies. Like 
Microsoft and IBM, Google caps the number of white and Asian men 
that universities can nominate for a Ph.D. fellowship, using 
language almost identical to Microsoft’s. "If a university 
chooses to nominate more than two students," Google says, "the 
third and fourth nominees must self-identify as a woman, Black / 
African descent, Hispanic / Latino / Latinx, Indigenous, and/or 
a person with a disability."

That criterion has been in place since at least April 2020, 
according to an archived webpage. It is not clear when Microsoft 
and IBM adopted their criteria.

Nearly every elite university in the country has nominated 
students for one of the fellowships and some, like Columbia 
University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have 
nominated students for all three. Though universities are 
unlikely to lose federal funding over the fellowships, they 
could face lawsuits or civil rights investigations.

So could the companies themselves. Since the programs are not 
unconditional grants—fellows must remain in their Ph.D. program 
for the duration of the fellowships—courts would probably treat 
them as contracts, said Dan Morenoff, the executive director of 
the American Civil Rights Project. That would expose Microsoft, 
Google, and IBM to liability under the 1866 Civil Rights Act, 
the law banning race discrimination in contracting.

Other tech companies are already facing such lawsuits. In July, 
a white woman filed a class action complaint against Amazon over 
a program that gives "Black, Latinx, and Native American 
entrepreneurs" $10,000 dollar stipends to launch delivery 
startups. The program violates the 1866 Civil Rights Act, the 
lawsuit argues, because whites and Asians are ineligible for the 
stipends.

"Every morning you wake up to hear a new story about a 
corporation ignoring the law," Heriot said. "They have to start 
being held accountable."

https://freebeacon.com/campus/a-microsoft-fellowship-caps-the-
number-of-white-and-asian-applicants-lawyers-say-thats-illegal/

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Re: A Microsoft Fellowship Caps the Number of White and Asian Applicants. Lawyers Say That's Illegal. "Kamala Harris says no racism" <incompetent@black.dicksucker> - 2022-09-12 04:24 +0200

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