UC Berkeley accused of segregation by allegedly banning whites from community farm
More college race-conscious and “diversity, equity and inclusion” programs created to advance opportunities for black students and other minorities have come under legal scrutiny, amid complaints they amount to reverse discrimination.
By Carl Campanile
NY Post
Mar 31, 2024
Excerpt:
The University of California at Berkeley is under fire for allegedly banning white residents from using a community farm on Saturdays in a move one critic slammed as “systemic racism.”
The university told The Post it is investigating claims that the “Gill Tract Community Farm” in nearby Albany offered its space on Saturday exclusively to “Black, Indigenous, and People of Color,” after a complaint with the US Department of Education by the Mountain States Legal Foundation.
“UC-Berkeley thinks that racial segregation is progressive now, but it’s no different than segregation of the past,” said William Trachman, general counsel for the group.
“Preventing Caucasians from accessing Berkeley’s College of Natural Resources Farm on Saturdays is a clear violation of Title VI, which bars educational institutions from engaging in or allowing race discrimination,” added Trachman, a UC-Berkeley alumnus himself.
He said the feds should open a sweeping audit of every UC-Berkeley program to ferret out what he claimed was “systemic racism.”
Launched in 2013, the farm is a partnership between UC-Berkeley and the surrounding neighborhoods. Students and faculty conduct urban farming research and grow crops to prepare healthy meals as part of the “food justice” movement, according to the farm’s website.
The complaint includes an email from a farm program manager telling someone, “Saturdays are exclusively BIPOC. Exceptions have only been made for events that are BIPOC-centered and with plenty of advance notice and planning.”
“I trust you stand in solidarity with upholding boundaries around that safe and sacred space,” the farm manager said.
