The Equal Protection Project (EPP) filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights against Grand Valley State University (GVSU) in Allendale, Michigan for using racial criteria in its scholarship selection process.
The university has allegedly violated Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act by offering 11 scholarships exclusively restricted to students meeting certain racial criteria for each award, according to EPP, which filed the complaint on Jan. 13.
“Regardless of GVSU’s reasons for offering, promoting, and administering such discriminatory scholarships, GVSU is violating Title VI by doing so,” EEP writes in its complaint. “It does not matter if the recipient of federal funding discriminates to advance a benign ‘intention’ or ‘motivation.’”
“We believe that saying scholarships only open to Blacks and other non-Whites is about as discriminatory as you can get,” EPP Founder William Jacobson told News Channel 3. “If there were any doubt, if they had a scholarship that said, ‘we’re only open to Whites,’ there’d be an absolute uproar, and there should be.”
Several of the 11 scholarships have strict race-based eligibility criteria, such as the Johnny C. Burton Memorial Scholarship, offered exclusively to African American students, or the Steelcase Inc. Scholarship, reserved for “persons of color.”
The GVSU Social Work Minority Scholarship restricts student eligibility to applicants who classify as ”Black/Non-Hispanic, Hispanic, Asian/Pacific Islander or Native American.”
Jacobson has clarified that the goal of this complaint is not to eliminate the scholarships, but to make them available to all students regardless of race.
”We want students to get money for it and to advance their education, but the university has to do that in a lawful, race-neutral way,” he told News Channel 3. “That’s our goal.”
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”If there were any doubt, if they had a scholarship that said, ‘we’re only open to Whites,’ there’d be an absolute uproar, and there should be,” he added.
GVSU operates a Division of Equity and Inclusion whose mission statement indicates that it “supports sustainable and strategic institutional efforts to engage all members of the community, while also intentionally advocating for and uplifting historically underrepresented communities.”
Campus Reform has contacted the Equal Protection Project and Grand Valley State University for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
Pedro Rodriguez is a third year Philosophy student at the University of Florida. Upon becoming an American Citizen, Pedro has aspired to have a career in public service. Since the 2018 elections, Pedro has worked in several local and national campaigns, the Republican Party of Florida and spent a year as a congressional intern. Immigrating to the United States from Venezuela, Pedro has experienced the real horror stories of socialism, a…
