by James A. Bacon

A University of Virginia mentorship program for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) students discriminates against White people on the basis of race, contends a complaint filed Tuesday by the Equal Protection Project.

The BIPOC Alumni-Student Mentoring Program provides up to 25 UVA students in the School of Education and Human Development with individualized guidance from alumni educators. Its goal, according to its web page, is to “improve BIPOC undergraduates’ program experiences, career opportunities, and retention through pairing these learners with alumni mentors.”

“Just as it would be a violation of the university’s rules to have a whites-only mentoring program, it’s a violation of the rules to have a non-whites-only program,” said William A. Jacobson, founder of the Equal Opportunity Project, reports WVIR. “The university needs to be race-neutral in its educational and related programming.”

A UVA spokesman told WVIR he had not seen the complaint so could not comment on it.

“Our guiding principle is that there is no ‘good’ form of racism. The remedy for racism never is more racism,” states the Equal Opportunity Project website.

The Equal Opportunity Project is an initiative of the Legal Insurrection Foundation, which was founded by Jacobson, a Cornell Law School professor and publisher of the conservative Legal Insurrection blog.

“We’re not seeking money for ourselves,” Jacobson said. “We’re not seeking legal fees for ourselves. We’re seeking to change discriminatory behavior.”

Bacon’s bottom line: Discrimination by race is discrimination by race, whether motivated by bigotry or a benign desire to give minorities a step up. Here’s a novel idea: how about creating a mentorship program for people who come from disadvantaged backgrounds? Such a program would disproportionately, though not exclusively, benefit the same groups targeted by the BIPOC initiative.

The issue at stake is whether or not we want a color-blind society. By “color blind,” I don’t mean to suggest that we fail to acknowledge racial differences — an impossibility — but that we deem racial traits inconsequential in how we interact with one another. Many higher-ed policies at UVA are antithetical to that goal. By supporting programs like the BIPOC initiative, UVA cements racial categorizations into place and imbues them with significance. It’s time to focus instead on helping those who need help, regardless of the color of their skin.

James A. Bacon is contributing editor of The Jefferson Society. The views expressed here are his own.