Eager to show that he's as woke a white person as there is and eager to expiate his own white guilt, Princeton University president Christopher Eisgruber donned the requisite sackcloth and ashes and abased both himself and his institution in a September 2nd letter to the Princeton community in which he claimed that racism and "the damage it does to people of color" remain "embedded" in the university.
He made this statement despite the university's pro forma promises to students and the federal government that it doesn't discriminate on the basis of race. Apparently those assurances have been false.
The Department of Education, apprised of President Eisgruber's abject admission of Princeton's continued structural racism under his watch and the obvious implication that the university has been lying when it claimed not to discriminate, has launched an investigation into the university for violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The act states that "no person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be...subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.
The Washington Free Beacon reports that,
In a letter addressed to the Princeton president, the Department of Education said that the school's self-admitted racism was grounds for an investigation. The department is concerned that Princeton—which receives millions in federal funding—has violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964.We can assume that President Eisgruber never saw this coming when he wrote his letter to the Princeton community. No doubt he thought the letter would ingratiate him with hundreds of faculty and administrators who in July signed a letter calling on Princeton to atone for its "anti-Blackness."
"Based on its admitted racism, the [department] is concerned Princeton's nondiscrimination and equal opportunity assurances … may have been false," the letter reads. "The Secretary of Education may consider measures against Princeton for false … nondiscrimination assurances, including an action to recover funds."
That letter includes demands such as extended sabbaticals for minority faculty, removing standard application questions about previous misdemeanors and incarcerations and acknowledging that the school was built on Native-American territory.
Like Buridan's Ass, Eisgruber now finds himself in quite a difficult dilemma. He can stand by his original claims that his school is systemically racist, in which case his university stands to lose millions of dollars in federal funding, or he can recant those assertions, declare that, on second thought, his school isn't racist after all, and stick his thumb in the eye of all those hundreds of faculty and staff who insisted in July that it is.
It'll be interesting to see how President Eisgruber resolves his predicament.