University of Maryland lab faces a Title VI civil rights complaint

FIRST ON FOX: A University of Maryland research lab that received nearly $700,000 in additional federal funding from the Trump administration this year is facing a civil rights complaint alleging that it uses race and ethnicity to determine access to some research-related opportunities.

The Equal Protection Project (EPP) filed the complaint with the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights against UMD’s Lavender Lab, a National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded lab that studies suicide, substance use and other health outcomes among LGBTQ+ people and Black, Indigenous and People of Color.

EPP is asking HHS to investigate whether the lab’s LGBTQ+ Teens of Color Advisory Board and its research assistant selection practices give priority to non-White applicants.

“Some people may ask what is wrong with prioritizing non-whites in a program which is designed to study non-whites,” EPP founder William Jacobson told Fox News Digital. “When you receive federal funding, you cannot discriminate in the administration of your programs.”

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“You do not need to have an advisory board, you do not need to hire research assistants based on race to fulfill the purposes of this grant,” Jacobson continued.

The complaint comes as the Lavender Lab continues receiving millions of dollars through the NIH for research examining alcohol and drug use among “sexual minority adolescents of color.”

One of the lab’s principal projects, titled “Long-Term and Daily Associations Among Intersectional Minority Stress, Structural Oppression, and Alcohol Use and Misuse Among Sexual Minority Adolescents of Color,” began in May 2022 and is scheduled to run through April 2027. The complaint cites approximately $3.6 million in total federal obligations and roughly $2.2 million in outlays at the time of its filing.

NIH records cited in the complaint show the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism provided another $695,192 for the project for fiscal year 2026.

The complaint points first to the lab’s LGBTQ+ Teens of Color Advisory Board, which said it was “specifically looking for teens in the US who identify as both LGBTQ+ and Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) to join our board” in an Instagram post.

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An aerial view of the University of Maryland campus in College Park, Maryland on November 14, 2009. (G Fiume/Getty Images)

According to the complaint, board members are paid to help review research, provide feedback and participate in professional-development activities, with some also receiving leadership opportunities.

EPP also targeted the Lavender Lab’s research-assistant program, which offers positions to undergraduate and master’s-level students.

Although the positions are generally unpaid, the complaint stated that undergraduate research assistants may receive academic course credit, and some students may be able to participate through federal work-study. Research assistants generally commit to at least two semesters and a minimum of eight hours per week.

The lab stated it “especially encourage[s] and invite[s] candidates from traditionally marginalized backgrounds” to apply and that applicants with experience conducting research involving “LGBTQ and BIPOC communities” through “cultural humility, intersectionality, and social justice approaches” will receive the “strongest consideration.”

“Discrimination based on race or ethnicity at institutions receiving federal funding is unlawful regardless of which group is targeted or benefits,” Jacobson said. “Treating individuals as avatars of their demographic identity rather than as individuals with unique merits and circumstances undermines fairness, merit, social cohesion, and the rule of law.”

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EPP alleges that the language indicates race or ethnicity may play a role in the selection process. The complaint asks HHS to investigate whether the practices violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color or national origin in federally funded programs, as well as the Affordable Care Act.

“Because the Lavender Lab is operating under an HHS health care related grant, the non-discrimination provisions of the Affordable Care Act must be adhered to, and HHS has authority to enforce those provisions,” Jacobson said.

EPP’s complaint also questions federal funding for research focused on intersectionality, which the Lavender Lab says guides its work. The lab studies how sexual-minority status, race, ethnicity and what it calls “structural oppression” affect health outcomes.

“The conduct at the Lavender Lab calls into question whether HHS should be funding intersectionality-focused research at all,” Jacobson said. “Intersectionality is a race- and ethnicity-focused group-identity approach. It is no surprise that where the focus is racial identity that programming could cross the line into civil rights violations.”

Jacobson said EPP has found federal dollars going to programs that use intersectionality and is calling for tighter rules on that funding.

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“We have identified hundreds of millions of dollars of federal funding for programs that incorporate intersectionality,” Jacobson said. “Given the civil rights danger from an ‘intersectional’ approach, we call on the administration to issue a new executive order and agency guidance closing the ‘intersectionality loophole’ by including intersectionality in the ban on unlawful discriminatory DEI practices in federal grantmaking.”

Fox News Digital reached out to the University of Maryland, HHS and the White House for comment.