Young America’s Foundation seeks to open the federally funded program to all individuals, ‘regardless of race’
Young America’s Foundation recently filed a lawsuit against the Department of Education, alleging the agency is rejecting students from a federally funded achievement program based on their race.
The lawsuit alleges the McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program excludes Asians, Arabs, Middle Easterners, non-Hispanic Latinos, some Africans, and whites unless they meet a limited exception for first-generation low-income students. Instead, it supports primarily black, Native American and Pacific Islander students, according to the suit.
The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty filed the lawsuit on behalf of Benjamin Rothove, a University of Wisconsin-Madison student and reporter for The College Fix, and Avery Durfee, a University of North Dakota student.
The students are otherwise qualified to apply but “ineligible” based solely on their race, according to the lawsuit. They are both white.
“An official from my university told me that I could not apply to the McNair Program because of the eligibility requirements set by the Department of Education. … I joined this lawsuit to help expand scholarship opportunities to more students,” Rothove told The College Fix.
The program’s stated goal is to “increase the attainment of Ph.D. degrees by students from underrepresented segments of society.”
It is open to participants from “disadvantaged backgrounds” who have “demonstrated strong academic potential,” offering internships, seminars, tutoring, academic counseling, a stipend, and more, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
“[M]ake no mistake: the word ‘underrepresented’ is a euphemism for certain minority groups preferred by Defendants,” the lawsuit alleges.
YAF argues that the McNair Program’s race-based requirements violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. The conservative group is requesting “a preliminary and permanent injunction, along with a declaratory judgment” to prevent the Biden administration from enforcing any race-based criteria for program eligibility.
“The goal of the lawsuit is to open the program to all qualified students, regardless of race,” Daniel Lennington, deputy counsel for WILL, told The College Fix.
Regarding the current status of the case, Lennington said WILL has “filed a motion for preliminary injunction, which is pending. After a ruling on that motion, we will assess our strategy.”
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He added that “at some point, the Biden Administration will need to publicly account [for] this discrimination and explain why it feels that race discrimination is important.”
According to YAF’s Chief Communications Officer Spencer Brown, the organization’s primary concern is the effort by the Biden-Harris administration to “institutionalize race-based discrimination in the name of DEI.”
The color of a student’s skin should have “no bearing on decisions regarding academic opportunities,” Brown told The Fix.
Rothove said that while DEI programs have good intentions, “their record of failure and divisiveness proves that they are a failed experiment.”
He added that while it’s excellent that affirmative action programs have been struck down, “now it is time to make all race discrimination a thing of the past.”
Asked for comment about the ongoing lawsuit and the claims that the McNair Program violates the Constitution, a Department of Education spokesperson told The Fix the department “does not comment on pending litigation.”
The case follows a recent Supreme Court ruling against race-based education processes. Last year, the Supreme Court found that Harvard’s admissions process violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by considering race in admission decisions.
According to Lennington, WILL has identified more than 70 federal programs that use race as a factor in participant selection. He said he believes they are all unconstitutional, and over the last three years, WILL has sued the Biden administration to “stop discrimination … and won.”
This lawsuit follows several previous efforts by YAF and WILL to remove the consideration of racial and ethnic identity from the admissions process, including one against Rutgers University.
During pro-Hamas protests in May, administrators at Rutgers promised millions of dollars in scholarships to only Palestinian students, allegedly violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which “prohibits discrimination based on race, color, or national origin in programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance.”
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