White Student Sues For Discrimination After Not Landing Diversity Internship

She claims she was wrongfully excluded from their diversity program.

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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A white Utah student is suing for discrimination after she claims she was excluded from a prestigious internship program with the Getty Foundation. There’s just one problem—she didn’t meet all the requirements.

Southern Utah University undergrad  Samantha Niemann filed a lawsuit in the Los Angeles Superior Court on Friday for "harassment, discrimination, and retaliation" after she says she was not considered for the Multicultural Undergraduate Internship aimed at increasing diversity in the arts. According to the organization’s website, potential interns must "be of a group underrepresented in museums and visual arts organizations, including, but not limited to, individuals of African American, Asian, Latino/Hispanic, Native American, or Pacific Islander descent."

Despite her German, Italian and Irish background, Niemann insists she’s well qualified thanks to her 3.7 grade-point average, CBS Los Angelesreports. Per the Daily Beast, she is suing for punitive damages including "but not limited to loss of earnings and future earning capacity, medical and related expenses for care and procedures both now and in the future, attorney’s fees, and other pecuniary loss." Under California’s anti-discrimination code, she could receive a payout of $25,000 for each damage which is well over the $4,500 stipend offered during the two-month internship.

The Getty Foundation stands by the program, reiterating their push for greater diversity within the arts community. "The Getty is very proud of the highly successful Multicultural Undergraduate Internship Program launched by the Getty Foundation in 1993 in order to increase the diversity of professional staff in museums and visual arts organizations in LA County," Ron Hartwig, vice president of communications for J. Paul Getty Trust said in a statement to Complex. "We review and revise all of our grant categories from time to time and over the years have made a number of policy and procedural changes to the internship program."

One of those changes, added just two months ago, includes the specification that applicants must come from an underrepresented group. Obviously, countries from Western Europe did not make the cut. 

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