A group of California students has filed a federal lawsuit challenging the University of California, San Diego’s scholarship program that allegedly limits eligibility on the basis of race.
The lawsuit, brought forward by students and the Californians for Equal Rights Foundation (CFER) with legal support from the Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF), targets the university’s relationship with the Black Alumni Scholarship Fund (BASF).
The complaint was filed on July 16 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California. The listed defendants are the University of California Board of Regents and the UC San Diego.
“Government actors cannot do indirectly what the Constitution forbids them to do directly,” said Haley Dutch, a PLF attorney on the case. “UC San Diego’s entanglement with a private entity to enforce racial exclusions is an end-run around both the U.S. Constitution and California’s Proposition 209.”
The program, BASF, offers scholarships and mentoring only to black students, excluding others who meet academic qualifications, the complaint asserts.
One plaintiff, UC San Diego student Kai Peters, was excluded despite qualifying, and another eligible student never received an application after choosing not to disclose her race.
“Our clients don’t seek special treatment — just equal treatment,” said Jack Brown, another PLF attorney. “Scholarships tied to race deprive students of financial help, mentoring, and networking that should be open to everyone.”
In February, the Trump administration’s Department of Education sent a notice warning schools that, if they continued to discriminate on the basis of race, they may lose federal funding.
“If an educational institution treats a person of one race differently than it treats another person because of that person’s race, the educational institution violates the law,” ED stated.
“Federal law thus prohibits covered entities from using race in decisions pertaining to admissions, hiring, promotion, compensation, financial aid, [and] scholarships,” the department’s letter continued.
Campus Reform has reported about numerous other anti-discrimination complaints, including those brought against Fordham University, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the University of Virginia, the University of Oregon, and the University of Connecticut.
One organization, the Equal Protection Project (EPP), has filed dozens of complaints in total. On its website, EPP states that it is “devoted to the fair treatment of all persons without regard to race or ethnicity.”
Last year, the founder of the Equal Protection Project, William Jacobson, said that “[a]t least half” of the schools EPP has targeted subsequently “changed their discriminatory practices in response.” In total, EPP has had more than 75 “wins and impacts” from February 2023-May 2025, according to the organization’s website.
Campus Reform has contacted the University of California, San Diego for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
Patrick McDonald is a student at Hillsdale College pursuing a major in History and a minor in Politics. He competes full-time on the Hillsdale College Mock Trial team and the Hillsdale College Debate team. In high school, Patrick competed in the National Christian Forensics and Communications Association (NCFCA) in 13 different speech and debate events. He won numerous awards, including four national championships. Patrick also competed…