An agency of the California state government granted nearly $200,000 to an organization that hosts internships exclusively for women and “gender expansive” youth, an apparent violation of anti-discrimination laws.
The organization, Syryn Records, is a project of Girls Rock SB, a non-profit organization that’s received over $183,000 in grants from the California Arts Council, a state agency. A social media graphic from Syryn Records laid out that to qualify for a position at the company you “must self-identify as a girl, BIPOC, or gender expansive.”
An application for the internship program also states, “Applicants must self-identify as female or gender-expansive,” before adding “BIPOC humans strongly encouraged to apply.”
“We’ve made it our mission to bring girls’, women’s, and non-binary and gender-expansive youth’s creative dreams to life through inclusivity and diversity,” the record label explains in a description of the company.
Syryn Records appears to have the same selection criteria for paid staff members, with the organization stating, “We need not 1, not 2, but 5 FEMALE AND GENDER-EXPANSIVE STAFF to help us run our next 15-week SYRYN RECORDS cohort.” The organization goes on to say “In case you haven’t heard, women and gender-expansive people are grossly underrepresented in the music industry.”
David Bernstein, a professor at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia School of Law, told The Daily Wire that programs that discriminate against people on the basis of their race violate Title VII and that the state funding could potentially impact the legal environment.
“State funding may (a) create obligations for the state to cut off that funding; and (b) may impose additional legal non-discrimination obligations on the entity,” Bernstein explained.
One of the most recent grants to Girls Rock SB, which designated $38,000 to the organization for “creative youth development,” acknowledges the non-profit’s focus on “gender-expansive youth.” A project description states “The mission of Girls Rock SB (GRSB) is to empower girls, women, and gender-expansive youth through music education, the creative arts, community, and positive mentorship.”
“Our programs work to change the status quo of artistic spaces—especially the music industry, which lacks representation from female and gender-expansive voices, specifically from marginalized communities like women of color and LGBTQ+ people” it reads before adding “Since launching in 2012, GRSB has provided immersive arts programs to more than 11,000 female-identifying and non-binary youth, approximately roughly ages 5–23, with a focus on marginalized and historically under-resourced communities.”
Girls Rock SB and the California Arts Council did not respond to requests for comment.