Trumps DOJ probing racial and sex-based discrimination in hiring at University of California school system

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department launched an investigation Thursday into the University of California system to determine if it ran afoul of federal law by engaging in racial or sex-based discrimination when hiring faculty.President Trump’s DOJ said that it was taking particular issue with the “UC 2030 Capacity Plan,” which seeks to “diversify its faculty,” specifically identifying “underrepresented minorities” and “female faculty” as two areas of special emphasis.The 10-campus UC system, which takes more than $17 billion in federal funding, launched the program in 2022 as part of its efforts to increase racial and gender diversity on campus.Included in the UC 2030 Capacity Plan’s roadmap to “grow and diversify its faculty” are two programs designed to expedite the entry of women and minorities into the faculty: the UC President’s Pre-Professoriate Fellowship Program and the UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship.According to the Pre-Professoriate Fellowship’s info page, the program “aims to enhance faculty diversity and pathways to the professoriate for historically underrepresented students from California Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs).”The webpage also specifies the demographic groups the fellowship “particularly” seeks to aid, listing the following categories: “Chicanx/Latinx, African Americans, American Indians/Native Americans, Filipinx, and Pacific Islanders in all disciplines; women in STEM; and Asian Americans in the humanities and social sciences.”Recipients of the fellowship are allotted a $37,000 stipend, California resident tuition and fees, and a $10,000 “professional development grant.”The goal of the President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship, per its website, is “to provide research opportunity and career development for scholars whose work will enhance the diversity of the academic community at the University of California,” specifically women and minorities.The Trump administration, without ...