The U.S. Education Department has launched investigations into potential discrimination against men by pro-women groups at Yale and the University of Southern California.
The investigation focuses on specific programs and scholarships for women. Kursat Christoff Pekgoz, a doctoral student at the University of Southern California, filed a complaint arguing that the programs are unlawful considering that women now dominate academia. According to Inside Higher Ed, 56 percent of all college students are women.
Pekgoz highlighted several programs at Yale University that are geared towards advancing female students. No similar programs exist for male students.
In his complaint, Pekgoz targets different Yale initiatives that he believes are discriminatory against men; the federal agency decided to only take up some of those, among them some scholarships for women, a faculty network designed just for women, and a program to train women in political campaigning. The department declined to investigate Yale’s Women’s Center or its Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies because they do not exclude men, it said.
In a comment to Insider Higher Ed, Pekgoz wrote that men are now less likely to go to college and complete a degree. “Women are an ever-increasing majority in colleges,” Pekgoz wrote. “Male students are far more likely to drop out. Also, younger men are making less money than women despite working in more hazardous jobs.” Although it is unclear that young men make less than young women, it is certainly true that men work more hazardous jobs.
According to recent studies, women have earned the majority of doctoral degrees for the past eight years. In 2017, women became the majority of medical school students. In 2016, women became the majority of law school students. According to the American Enterprise Institute, by 2009, women were the majority of degree earners at all college levels from associates to doctoral degrees.