'Worst-Kept Secret In Academia': Northwestern Law Sued For Alleged Anti-White Man Bias

EVANSTON, IL — A conservative legal nonprofit filed a federal civil rights lawsuit accusing Northwestern University and its law review of discrimination against white men in hiring decisions and article selection processes.

The suit was filed on behalf of a trio of unnamed professors tenured at unspecified law schools who say they are "able and ready to apply" for a job on the faculty of Northwestern's Pritzker School of Law.

But they have not done so, allegedly because they are "unable to compete on an equal basis with faculty candidates who are women, racial minorities, homosexuals, or individuals who engage in gender-nonconforming behavior or identify with a gender that departs from their biological sex."

According to the complaint filed on their behalf, the group Faculty, Alumni and Students Opposed to Racial Preferences, or FASORP, has "additional members who are suffering injuries in fact similar or identical" to those claimed by the three anonymous professors.

"Neither the claims asserted by FASORP nor the relief requested in this litigation requires the participation of the organization’s individual members," according to the complaint.

The lawsuit asserts that Northwestern's law school has, since 2012, enforced a mandate to hire non-white and non-male faculty candidates and rejected white men with superior credentials.

Tables included in the complaint indicate that over the past three years, the university extended job offers to 21 people, of which three were white men.

“Federal law prohibits discriminating against any American citizen on the basis of race or sex–yet the pervasiveness and extent of such discrimination is the worst-kept secret in academia," said Gene Hamilton, executive director of the America First Legal Foundation, which is backing the lawsuit.

"No one should receive an advantage because of their immutable characteristics, and no one should be disadvantaged," Hamilton said in a statement. "Decisions need to be made based on merit and excellence alone, and we will fight for the rights of all Americans to be free from race and sex discrimination in the United States."

The 32-page complaint also claims the Northwestern University Law Review gives preferential treatment to articles, editors, and members who are women, racial minorities, homosexuals, or transgender individuals.

The defendants named in the lawsuit include Northwestern University; Hari Osofsky, dean of the law school; professors Sarah Lawsky, Janice Nadler, and Daniel Rodriguez; Dheven Unni, editor in chief of the law review and Jazmyne Denman, senior equity and inclusion editor of the law review.

According to the complaint, starting with the law school's former dean, the school has had a mandate to hire as many non-white, non-male candidates as possible.

"As a result of the mandate, Northwestern University School of Law refuses to even consider hiring white male faculty candidates with stellar credentials, while it eagerly hires candidates with mediocre and undistinguished records who check the proper diversity boxes," the suit alleges.

As for the law review, the complaint cites an issue it published during the 2023-24 year for which only articles authored by Black women were considered, though that was never disclosed in print.

"The student editors and members on the Law Review were told that this was done intentionally to promote the careers of these black women academics because of their race and sex," according to the suit.

A spokesperson for Northwestern University last week told reporters the school plans to "vigorously defend this case."

The suit was filed July 2 by Texas attorney Jonathan Mitchell, along with the firm Stone Hilton and America First Legal.

“This is the first of many lawsuits that will be filed against universities that refuse to implement colorblind and sex-neutral faculty-hiring practices," Mitchell said. "Our client [FASORP] has standing to sue any university we want, and any professor who has incriminating evidence should reach out to us.”

The suit follows last year's U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina and Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, where the justices struck down race-based affirmative action as unconstitutional.

The America First Legal Foundation, which is headed by former Trump advisor Stephen Miller, and FASORP previously sued New York University over alleged discrimination by its law review. A trial court judge tossed out the claim, finding the anonymous plaintiff lacked standing. That decision was upheld by an appeals court, and the Supreme Court declined to review it.