Southern Illinois University Restores Original Web Descriptions of Minority Fellowships
CARBONDALE, Ill.
Southern Illinois University has restored on its Web site the original descriptions of graduate fellowships the government considers discriminatory after officials said the listings had been mistakenly revised.
The site again shows the fellowships as targeting minorities or “underrepresented groups.” Last week, the site was changed to list the programs as seeking to help “underserved” populations.
The revisions were made as SIU administrators weigh a Justice Department proposal that would head off a lawsuit threatened by the government demanding that SIU discontinue three fellowship programs that it says amounts to “intentional discrimination against Whites, non-preferred minorities and males.”
David Gross, a spokesman for the SIU system, said last week the revisions were done without the consent of the university’s president, the Carbondale school’s chancellor or the system’s legal counsel and did not reflect the Justice Department’s proposed offer. Gross said the revisions were made on “an assumption” by administrators in the system’s diversity office.
“It was not accurate,” he said.
