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Civil rights experts say further investigation is needed into potential racial discrimination at Grand Valley State University

Grand Valley State University’s Honors College privileges racial minorities for scholarships and admissions, according to emails obtained by The College Fix.

The favoritism has been going on for years, possibly decades, based on the comments made by the director of the Frederick Meijer Honors College.

“We accept virtually all students of color, except in cases in which the student’s writing is such that we’re convinced they would struggle far too much in our first-year sequences,” Professor Roger Gilles wrote in an email to colleagues.

The April 4, 2022 email goes into further detail about how the university works together to privilege non-white students.

“This year, in fact, we accepted a ‘Signature Saturday’ student with a high GPA but an SAT score of 880..!” Gilles, the director of the honors college, wrote to several other administrators in the program. “We are open to changing the profile of the typical Honors student.”

Signature Saturday is an open house event for the honors college. An SAT score of 880 would place an incoming freshman in fall 2022 below the 25th percentile, according to public data. This accepted student would be just one of 51 students with an SAT score below 900 in the class of fall 2022 at the university.

Gilles (pictured) did not respond to emails, phone calls, and voicemails left in the past week asking for comment on what he wrote. The Fix also asked what it means to be an honors student if someone with an 880 SAT score can be accepted.

Non-white students also are prioritized for financial aid — even though the college has “limited” scholarships.

“With the cooperation of Jodi in Admissions and Michelle in Financial Aid, we’ve tried hard to give most of the limited number of Honors-specific scholarship[s] we award to students of color,” Gilles wrote. “This has been the case going back to Dr. J.”

“Dr. J.” refers to Professor Jeff Chamberlain, who served as the director of the honors college between 2007 to 2017, before leaving for a similar role at the University of North Florida. He is now an academic program manager for the University of Oregon. Reached by phone on July 2, Chamberlain declined to comment.

“Jodi” appears to refer to Jodi Chycinski, the former associate vice president and director of admissions. She now has a similar role at Davenport University, also in Michigan. She did not respond to two emailed requests for comment in the past week.

The Fix also tried to reach Michelle Rhodes, the associate vice president for financial aid, to ask about the allegations. A staffer in her office said she was out of the office on June 30 and July 1. Rhodes did not respond to an email and voicemail left in the past week.

The Fix reached out to a variety of GVSU affiliates for comments, including Professors Mark Schaub, Coeli Fitzpatrick, and Melanie Shell-Weiss. All three were copied on the email from Gilles, which began as a response to Schaub.

Schaub is the dean of the Brooks College of Interdisciplinary Studies, which houses the honors college. Shell-Weiss is the associate dean. Fitzpatrick is the chair of the college and a philosophy professor.

Grand Valley State University redacted portions of emails where professors discuss discriminating against white students.

The Fix obtained a longer email thread via a public records request — however, GVSU redacted the portion about favoring racial minorities. In fact, the school also redacted the public email addresses of the professors on the thread. They appear to be discussing a report about minority recruitment and retention. The Fix has filed an appeal over the redactions.

While much of the discussion is redacted, Shell-Weiss laments that despite the college’s efforts, “From a diversity standpoint, the needle effectively hasn’t moved.”

As seen in the unredacted email above, Gilles celebrated that 21 percent of the professors were “faculty of color.”

President in 2023: Our university ‘does not consider race or gender in admissions decisions’

The favoritism contradicts a past assertion by the university’s president, Philomena Mantella, that the university “does not consider race or gender in admissions decisions.”

Mantella made the statement on June 29, 2023, after the Supreme Court banned affirmative action in the Students for Fair Admissions case. A staffer in Mantella’s office told The Fix on July 2 to send over information about the racial discrimination and someone would get back that day. No one has yet to respond to that email or a reminder on July 7.

Media relations team members Chris Knape, Peg West, Bill Cuppy, and Brian Vernellis all did not respond to requests for comment in the past week. In addition to an email in the past week, The Fix also left a voicemail with Knape on July 2.

The emails raise legal concerns according to several experts who spoke to The College Fix. In addition to the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964, Michigan also has banned affirmative action in education since it passed Prop 2 in 2006.

“Grand Valley State University already is under federal investigation resulting from a civil rights complaint filed by the Equal Protection Project regarding 11 discriminatory scholarships,” the Legal Insurrection Foundation told The Fix via email. The EPP is a project of the foundation.

“If there is additional evidence that the discrimination was more widespread than is covered in our complaint, it is important that the Department of Justice join the Department of Education in investigating GVSU,” the legal group stated. “It is no defense that any such discrimination took place prior to the [Students for Fair Admissions Supreme Court] decision, as racial discrimination in education was unlawful prior to SFFA.”

The DOJ and Dept. of Ed. did not respond to requests for comment in the past week. The College Fix also reached out to the Dept. of Ed.’s Office for Civil Rights.

Vicki Levengood, the spokeswoman for the Michigan Department of Civil Rights, did not respond to two emailed requests for comment in the past week either on if an investigation would be opened into the school.

The Fix also reached out to GVSU’s board of trustees via its spokeswoman Stacie Behler and its secretary, Cori Kahler. Both were out of the office until this week. The Fix reached out to Sarah Abel, as directed by Behler’s out-of-office response, but she did not respond to a July 2 email.

The board of trustees does not list direct contact information for its members. The Fix contacted Chair Elizabeth Emmitt and Vice Chair Mikyia Aaron at their work emails on Monday. Neither responded to requests for comments on whether the board would look into the racial discrimination.

‘GVSU should investigate these allegations immediately’

Erin Wilcox, a civil rights expert, suggested further inquiries would be warranted.

“It’s hard to give a definitive answer based on this limited information, but I can say that both Michigan’s Prop 2 and Title VI prohibit the government – like a public university – from granting preferential treatment based on race or ethnicity,” the attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation stated.

“If GVSU’s Honors College is using different standards for ‘students of color’ in admissions and scholarship awards, then it’s doing exactly what state and federal law prohibit: granting preferential treatment based on race or ethnicity,” Wilcox told The Fix via a media statement.

She stated further:

GVSU should investigate these allegations immediately, put a stop to any illegal practices it finds, and remedy the harm done to qualified students who were not admitted to the Honors College or not awarded a scholarship due to their race or ethnicity. Applicants to GVSU should only be judged by their unique skills, talents, and abilities – not by the color of their skin.

Adam Kissel, a higher education civil rights expert, said the emails show the university “was engaging in blatant, illegal racial discrimination and should be investigated.”

“Racial discrimination in providing scholarships was clearly illegal, and even the Biden administration prohibited it, long before the Supreme Court finally ended race as a plus factor in admissions,” Kissel, a former deputy assistant secretary in the Department of Education, told The Fix via email.

Kissel noted the honors college uses a “holistic application process.”

“As a start, the university should be required to disclose the annual percentages of applicants and admissions by race to its honors college—and to the university at large,” said Kissel, an expert with the Heritage Foundation.

The emails also drew criticism from a state political leader.

Michigan Senate Republican Leader Aric Nesbitt told The Fix: “We’re closely monitoring universities to ensure compliance with federal law. Rebranding DEI policies to skirt the law won’t be tolerated—elimination, not evasion, is what we expect.”

“These discriminatory polic[i]es have no place in higher education,” he told The Fix via a media statement.

Editor’s note: Gilles is the director, not dean, of the college.

MORE: VCU med school sought to ‘work around- affirmative action ban

INSIDE IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: A redacted email obtained via a public records request; Grand Valley State University

MAIN IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: Honors College Director Roger Gilles with College Fix edits; Grand Valley State University

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