Number of scholarships ‘reflects a pervasive and systemic failure to comply with constitutional and statutory requirements’
Indiana University has at least 19 “discriminatory scholarships according to a federal civil rights complaint.
The Equal Protection Project has a pending complaint with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.
“The number of discriminatory scholarships we are challenging and the number of IU institutions at which they are offered reflects a pervasive and systemic failure to comply with constitutional and statutory requirements at IU, warranting expedited investigation by OCR,” the July 15 complaint states.
The EPP is part of the Legal Insurrection Foundation. It regularly challenges discriminatory programs.
“The donor has a preference for students of color,” one scholarship, the Steven Bretthauser Diversity Scholarship, states.
It was no longer visible when The College Fix checked today. However, it appears the scholarship has been moved to another page.
Many scholarships identify “minority students” or “underrepresented populations” in their criteria.
The programs violate federal law, according to the complaint.
“IU violates Title VI by conditioning eligibility for or providing preferential treatment for the foregoing scholarships at [the named campuses] based on a student’s race or national origin,” the complaint states. “And because IU is a public institution, its offering and administering of the scholarships listed here also violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”
The university declined to comment to the campus Indiana Daily Student when it reported on the complaint.
Professor William Jacobson filed the complaint through his Equal Protection Project. He also teaches law at Cornell University.
The group has filed more than 30 complaints, Jacobson told Indiana radio host Tony Katz.
But IU stands apart.
“We’ve never seen anything like this,” he said.
“We’ve never found a university with 19, or anything close to 19, discriminatory scholarships,” he said.
Jacobson said that “in least half of the complaints,” the universities will “remove the discriminatory eligibility standards.”
Jacobson has also filed a complaint against Minnesota’s North Central University, which has begun to scrub its scholarship in honor of George Floyd to remove racially discriminatory language.
Editor’s note: The headline and article have been updated to note scholarships have moved pages and have not been deleted.
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