MIT is the latest local school hit with a federal civil rights complaint, as a free speech group calls out the Cambridge campus for a “women of color” program that excludes white students.

The MIT program, “The Creative Regal Women of kNowledge” (CRWN), is at the center of the civil rights complaint filed against the university with the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights on Monday.

The Equal Protection Project nonprofit in the complaint claims that the MIT program for only women of color is discriminating on the basis of race, color, and sex — in violation of Title VI and Title IX.

“We bring this civil rights complaint against the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for creating, supporting and promoting a program for undergraduate students — called the Creative Regal Women of Knowledge, or ‘The CRWN’ — that engages in invidious discrimination on the basis of race, color and sex,” the complaint reads.

“As detailed and documented below, only undergraduate ‘women of color’ can participate in the program,” the group adds in the complaint. “Applicants who fall outside of those race- and sex-based categories are ineligible for it.”

The CRWN is for undergraduate women of color, which includes Black, Indigenous, Hispanic, Asian, Pacific Islanders, and other minority ethnicities, according to the program’s website.

Some of the program’s benefits, as stated on its website, include: Accessing financial assistance for pursing academic and professional development goals; participating in group mentoring opportunities; and access to social outings, retreats, dinners, and fun events.

“The CRWN eligibility requirements are openly racially and sexually discriminatory,” said William Jacobson, founder of the Equal Protection Project. “Regardless of the purpose of the discrimination, it is wrong and unlawful.

“It does society no good to inject more racism and sexism into the educational system through discriminatory university programs,” he added.

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Last week was the 70th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, ending racial segregation in public education, Jacobson noted.

“It is sad and disheartening to see that institutions like MIT that receive federal funding are re-segregating the student body through exclusionary programs,” he said.

“Unfortunately, many colleges and universities have bought into the ‘anti-racist’ activism claim that the remedy for past discrimination is current discrimination,” Jacobson added. “Such ‘reverse-racism’ and ‘reverse-sexism’ is just racism and sexism, and it is not the answer.”

In MIT’s handbook, the university’s nondiscrimination policy prohibits discrimination against individuals on the basis of race, color, sex, and more.

“Why isn’t MIT living up to its own rules?” Jacobson asked.

“MIT needs to come up with a remedial plan to compensate students shut out of the CRWN due to discrimination,” he added.

The Herald reached out to MIT about the civil rights complaint. A spokesperson for MIT said in a statement, “MIT does not, as a practice, comment on legal matters.”

Boston-area schools have faced numerous civil rights complaints over the last several months amid the Israel-Hamas war.