Lawsuit continues over Illinois ‘minority teachers’ scholarship program – The College Fix
A black female teacher in the front of a classroom; Lina Vanessa Merchan Jimenez/ Diversify Lens
A black female teacher in the front of a classroom; Lina Vanessa Merchan Jimenez/ Diversify Lens
Illinois is standing by its “minority teachers” scholarship program which excludes white applicants.
The federal case has now moved into the discovery phase after a district court denied the state’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, according to the Pacific Legal Foundation. The legal group is representing the American Alliance for Equal Rights and a high school senior in the lawsuit.
“When [discovery] ends, one or both sides will likely file a motion asking the court to make a final decision on whether the Minority Teachers of Illinois scholarship program illegally excludes applicants based on race,” attorney Erin Wilcox told The College Fix via a media statement.
The $8 million a year program provides “tuition, fees, and room and board costs,” according to court documents. Non-white applicants are prohibited from applying for the scholarship.
Pacific Legal Foundation told The Fix the state has not yet addressed how the scholarship squares with the 2023 Students for Fair Admissions Supreme Court decision which prohibits affirmative action in higher education.
The state is arguing its program complies with the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.
A spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office, which is representing Governor J.B. Pritzker and the Illinois Student Assistance Commission, did not provide comment in the past week.
Annie Thompson told The Fix on Oct. 17 she was looking into questions. The Fix asked about the affirmative action decision and why the state does not offer the scholarship program to all races.
She did not respond to a follow-up reminder on Oct. 21.
The state did file a response in early September following a judge’s ruling that the lawsuit could continue.
While the plaintiffs said the program “restricts eligibility on the basis of race,” the state frames its requirements as using “race as an eligibility requirement.”
Elsewhere, the state says “race is one part of the qualification considerations.”
While Illinois is defending this law, a major university system in the state says it is removing racial requirements for scholarships and admissions.
The University of Illinois system has reportedly told its campuses they cannot exclude applicants for either admission or teaching jobs on the basis of “race, color, national origin, and sex/gender,” according to WBEZ Chicago. Diversity statements are also prohibited, according to a memo reviewed by the news outlet.
A union leader at the University of Illinois-Chicago leader said the decision is a “capitulation” to the Trump administration.
“There’s no new law or new executive order constricting what the university system is allowed to do, so it does feel like a voluntary capitulation,” Nicole Nguyen, a criminology professor, said. “We’ve understood that the world is not a level playing field, and that some people, by virtue of the communities, the neighborhoods, the families that they’re born into, have disadvantage or privilege.”
Nguyen is also a “Soros Justice Fellow” and “feminist geographer,” according to her faculty bio.
“Scholarships that attend to racial inequity, gender inequity are about trying to level those scales,” Nguyen said.
The prohibitions only apply to scholarship offers moving forward, according to WBEZ.
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