This story has been updated with additional information.
The University of Michigan Alumni Association has ended its LEAD Scholars program, which provided scholarships to increase student diversity on campus.
The program’s page on the university website appears to have been scrubbed this week, leaving only a note of gratitude to donors and past scholars along with the news that it was ending.
The move came as President Donald Trump’s administration is scrutinizing colleges and universities for any use of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) measures, which it wants eliminated.
Last week, the U.S. Department of Education listed U-M among 45 schools being investigated for “allegedly engaging in race-exclusionary practices in their graduate programs.”
LEAD scholarships were only awarded to undergraduates but they were eliminated nonetheless.
The department listed six other schools, including Grand Valley State in west Michigan, as being investigated for “alleged impermissible race-based scholarships and race-based segregation,” according to the Department of Education.
LEAD scholars learned this week that awards they received earlier this semester would be the last.
“After careful review and consideration, and in order to apply with all applicable laws, the Alumni Association has made the decision to discontinue the LEAD scholars program, effective immediately,” Ashleigh Hardy, director of student engagement, wrote to LEAD scholars this week. “As a result, all LEAD scholars programs are being discontinued.”
Hardy wrote that the association was committed to helping the impacted students find other sources of support and would host a meeting next month to answer questions and concerns. It also noted that all other Alumni Association programs would continue as normal.
Liam Meister is a 19-year-old freshman from Helotes, Texas, a town of about 10,000 people just outside San Antonio. His heritage is German and Hispanic and last year, he graduated as salutatorian of his high school class and applied to several colleges to study political science.
But he also had a passion for theater so on a whim, he applied to U-M, which has a renowned fine arts program. He was eventually accepted and is now pursuing dual degrees; a fine arts degree in acting and bachelor’s degree in political science.
Meister said he was awarded $7,000 per year through the LEAD scholarship, without which it would have been almost impossible for him to attend what he considers to be the best public university in America. He learned the news that the program was ending in an email Thursday afternoon.
Meister said his particular scholarship honors a woman named Phyliss Wright, whose family funded it in her name.
“I was in the middle of recording a thank you video for my scholarship sponsor through LEAD,” Meister said. “I was sitting down at my desk in my dorm … just doing take after take because I was trying to squeeze everything that I’ve been up to in the last two semesters into this one-and-a-half minute video. It just wasn’t working so I took a break and checked my email, and lo and behold, there it was.”
At first, Meister thought it was some kind of joke. He tried to find more information. No luck. No one was saying anything. He said he and some of his fellow LEAD scholars are convinced the program was ended in response to the Trump administration efforts targeting DEI on campus.
“The potential for, you know, $21,000 going forward was definitely soothing the pain that was caused by the intense financial demand of this university,” Meister said. “So there was a moment of like, ‘Oh. I don’t know if I can continue here,’ but that quickly subsided. I was like, ‘No, I’ve chosen to be here. I will make a way forward.’ ”
Meister said his dual degree track leaves him little spare time, but he’s begun a search for a part-time job to try to bank some money for next year without the scholarship. He’s also hoping the university will direct him to other resources and on a larger level, and step up and fight the decision, either through defiance, or lawsuits or some other means.
“I think that the University of Michigan in particular … has a responsibility to stand up and sort of do the right thing,” he said.
University spokeswoman Kay Jarvis referred questions about the decision to end the program to the Alumni Association.
Robert Clendening, vice president of marketing and communications for the Alumni Association, told the Free Press in an email that the group was “not able to speak at this time.”
He did forward a statement reiterating the message from the program’s webpage and noted that the scholarship had helped almost 900 students over the years.
The association previously said that the program began in 2008 in response to a decision two years earlier by Michigan voters to approve Proposal 2. That was an amendment to Michigan’s Constitution “to ban affirmative action programs that give preferential treatment to groups or individuals based on their race, gender, color, ethnicity or national origin for public employment, education or contracting purposes.”
Minority enrollment was already falling at that time following a 2003 U.S. Supreme Court case that the university lost. The court ruled that U-M’s practice of awarding additional points to applicants who were “underrepresented minorities” violated the 14th Amendment and the Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
In a 2017 pitch to donors for the LEAD program, the Alumni Association said it “has committed to providing $10 million over the next 10 years to increase the number of scholarships available to African-American, Latino, and Native American students who have been accepted to the university.”
The program allowed applicants to compete for need-based scholarships ranging from $5,000 to $15,000 per year, which could be renewed for up to four years. They must already have been admitted to U-M, have a grade point average of 3.5 or higher in high school and have recommendations from a teacher or counselor.
Among the requirements for the scholarship, applicants had to submit an essay “explaining how they exemplify all of the four pillars of LEAD: leadership, excellence, achievement, and diversity,” according to an archived webpage from the program.
The Trump administration has set its sights on those kinds of measures as well, sending a letter in February to colleges and universities warning them about their nondiscrimination obligations.
“A school may not use students personal essays, writing samples, participation in extracurriculars, or other cues as a means of determining or predicting a student’s race and favoring or disfavoring such students,” the letter said.
Contact John Wisely: jwisely@freepress.com. On X: @jwisely
