A non-profit organization located in Barrington, Rhode Island, the Equal Protection Project of the Legal Insurrection Foundation, alleges that the State University of New York (SUNY) and numerous public libraries located in upstate New York in Albany practiced racial discrimination when they only allowed black students to participate in the internship program.

The advocacy organization sent a cease and desist to SUNY and the libraries, claiming they were violating racial equality rights because internships at two separate Albany libraries violated federal civil rights laws.

The organization filed a federal rights civil complaint with the Office of Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education. The complaint states, in part, that “as this program is racially exclusionary, UAlbany’s creation and active promotion of the fellowship violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VI”) and its implementing regulations as well as the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.”

The internship program under fire was created in a joint partnership between local public libraries with SUNY in Albany.

SUNY Albany disagrees. The spokesperson for the school, Jordan Carleo-Evangelist, said that the university is not involved in the administration of the internship.

“We’ve received the letter and are in the process of reviewing it. In the meantime, I can confirm that the University at Albany is not involved in the administration of this fellowship program,” said Carleo-Evangelist.

Prior to the internship scandal, in 2020, public records show that SUNY Albany (aka University of Albany), under the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, launched a partnership with the Albany Public Library. In that joint venture, they offered a “fellowship” only for “students of color” under the umbrellas of SUNY’s College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity.

The internship program, Touhey Library Equity Fellowship (TLEF), was promoted as being solely for black students and publicized heavily by SUNY this year.

The TLEF internship, as noted in the complaint, “offers a $1,500 scholarship and up to $11,500 in stipend for each selected fellow” and was “until very recently, described on the APL’s website as being open only “to Black graduates of master of library and information science ... or master of science in information systems ... programs at American Library Association-accredited institutions who completed their degrees between 2020 and May 2023.” The APL website further noted that “he paid internship gives recent Black graduates of library school programs the opportunity to gain valuable practical skills and proficiency in many aspects of public librarianship.”

President of the Equal Protection Project and Cornell University Law professor William Jacobson said that the applications violated numerous federal and local laws.

“As the is racially exclusionary, we write to put you on notice that this program violates a variety of federal, state and local civil rights laws, as well state and federal constitutional prohibitions on race-based discrimination,” said Jacobson.

Published reports state the Equal Protection Project, an organization that fights against racial preference policies, received a tip about the internship project. They said the internship was a result of the TLEF partnership formed in 2020. The Equal Protection Project said the program was being shared publicly, and that it violated numerous laws.

In the cease and desist letter, the Equal Protection Project stated, “As recently as February 23 and March 29, 2023, respectively, UAlbany was actively advertising and promoting this racially discriminatory fellowship on its Career and Professional Development webpage, two of the APL’s branches, and is available only to black graduates of library school programs.”

The nonprofit group is demanding the internship program be offered to people of all races and ethnicities because as the program stands now, it is unconstitutional.

Jacobson said, “Why does SUNY think it’s OK to discriminate on the basis of race and ethnicity? This fellowship program is only open to members of a single race. That’s clearly unconstitutional. This is exactly what you’re not supposed to do.”

In a previously published article in the Times Union, the Albany Public Library Executive Director Andrea Nicolay said that the allegations of discrimination were unexpected. She also said that the funding of the internship program was from private money from the non-profit Touhey Foundation and not public funding. However, that fact alone might not save the program from scrutiny in a constitutional challenge.