Pfizer is being sued for excluding whites and Asians from its prestigious "Breakthrough Fellowship," a nine-year program that includes a fully funded master's degree and guaranteed employment with the pharmaceutical giant.
The lawsuit, filed on Thursday by the medical advocacy group Do No Harm, says that the program's exclusionary criteria violate five different civil rights laws: the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which bans racial discrimination in contracting; New York City and New York State's human rights laws, which ban race discrimination in internships, training programs, and employment; Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bans race discrimination in federally funded entities; and Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, which bans race discrimination in federally funded health care programs.
Because Pfizer accepts reimbursements from the government, the lawsuit says, "All its operations—including the fellowship—are covered by" Title VI and Section 1557. That means the company could lose federal money if it does not change its application criteria, which explicitly restrict the Breakthrough Fellowship to "Black/African American, Latino/Hispanic, and Native American" students.
The plaintiffs are two Ivy League students who meet the academic requirements for the fellowship but cannot apply because of their race. They are asking a New York district court to block Pfizer from selecting fellows for the 2023 class and to force the fellowship to use race-blind...
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