A conservative group on Tuesday sued Northwestern University, claiming its law school discriminates against white men in faculty hiring and in the selection of articles that appear in its flagship law review.
The law school “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,” according to the complaint.
The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Chicago on behalf of three unnamed FASORP members who allege that they are ready and willing to apply for faculty posts at Northwestern's law school but cannot compete because they are white men.
Northwestern University plans to "vigorously defend this case," a spokesperson said Tuesday.
Former law dean Daniel Rodriguez declined to comment. The complaint alleges that Rodriguez instituted the school's policy against considering white men for tenured faculty positions while he was dean.
The suit alleges that Northwestern's law school extended offers to only three white men in the last three hiring cycles, during which the school made offers to 21 candidates. The complaint asserts that the school has consistently hired more junior and less-qualified minority faculty members over experienced and prominent white men.
Among the white men passed over for interviews at the school were University of California at Los Angeles law professor emeritus Eugene Volokh and Duke University law professor Ernie Young, the suit claims.
Volokh said Tuesday that he discussed the possibility of moving to Northwestern but does not know why those talks never progressed. He said he is not working with the plaintiffs.
"I’ll be a spectator just like everyone else," he said of the lawsuit.
Young said Tuesday that he was a lateral candidate and was surprised when the law school's hiring committee decided not to move forward, though he added he does not know why he was never offered a position. Young said he is not involved in planning the suit and is not a FASORP member.
FASORP counsel Mitchell said in a prepared statement that the Northwestern complaint is the “first of many lawsuits that will be filed against universities that refuse to implement colorblind and sex-neutral faculty-hiring practices.”
The new suit is the latest case in a wave of litigation against law schools, law firms, bar associations and companies in the year since the U.S. Supreme Court banned the consideration of race in college admissions. Many of these cases accuse defendants of maintaining programs or policies that discriminate against white men by giving preferences to minorities, women and other underrepresented groups.
The case is Faculty, Alumni, and Students Opposed to Racial Preferences v. Northwestern University, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, No. 1:24-cv-05558.
For FASORP: Jonathan Mitchell of Mitchell Law; Jude Stone, Christopher Hilton and Ari Cuenin of Stone Hilton; and Gene Hamilton of America First Legal Foundation
For Northwestern: Not yet available
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