Civil rights group warns Auburn over race-based scholarships – Campus Reform
The American Civil Rights Project has sent a letter to Auburn University, warning the school about scholarships on its website that discriminate based on race.
The July 23 letter notes that various scholarships on the university’s Auburn University Scholarship Opportunity Management page restrict eligibility to students from “underrepresented groups.”
The conservative organization also names the Auburn University Foundation in its letter. The foundation is a private organization affiliated with the university that also has a building on campus.
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“Public universities may not give or withhold benefits based on students’ skin color,” the organization says in its letter, pointing to the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause and Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
“Nonetheless, Auburn appears to continue to award race-based scholarships, either alone or through its nominally private foundation,” the letter continues.
The Alabama Power/Southern Company Minority Annual Scholarship is designed to increase “the level of diversity at AU.” Scholarship recipients must be from “underrepresented groups identified by AU’s Office of Enrollment Services.”
Auburn scholarships with similar requirements include the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation Annual Scholarship, Pharmacy Inclusion and Diversity Annual Fund for Excellence, and Charles Barkley Endowed Scholarship.
The Dr. Roderick and Janice Perry Annual Scholarship was also designed to “[promote] diversity, equity, and inclusion,” and “with preference to members of the Black Student Union or National Pan-Hellenic Council who demonstrate financial need.”
“It makes no difference whether Auburn is offering these scholarships directly or through its nominally private, supporting foundation,” the letter says. “Either way, the scholarships are illegal.”
[RELATED: California students sue UC San Diego over race-based scholarship]
Ben DuPre, a co-counsel with the American Civil Rights Project, criticized public institutions like Auburn for hiding behind “joint activity” with a private institution to discriminate.
“When state officials and private actors willfully engage in ‘joint activity’ that discriminates on the basis of race, they violate the Equal Protection Clause,” DuPre said in the organization’s announcement.
“Auburn and the Auburn Foundation should be promoting the Auburn Creed’s belief in ‘obedience to law because it protects the rights of all,’ instead of funding racial preferences for a few,” he continued.
According to its website, the American Civil Rights Project “exists to systematically sponsor litigation, file administrative complaints, participate in rulemaking, and educate both government leaders and the public, all to facilitate improvement in the law (and, through it, in our national culture).”
Auburn also received multiple public allegations of engaging in race-based admissions and scholarships in May and June.
Campus Reform contacted Auburn University for comment, but did not receive a response before publication.
Brendan McDonald is a graduate student pursuing a Master of Theological Studies. He graduated from Thomas More College and is interested in writing and communication.
