A public university in Florida is under investigation by the U.S. Department of Education for awarding race-based scholarships.
In a letter to University of South Florida President Rhea Law, the department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) said the agency received a complaint in March 2023. (It wasn’t clear from whom.) It alleged USF is violating the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by promoting and participating in the McKnight Doctoral Fellowship Program.
The McKnight scholarship, funded by the Florida Education Fund (FEF), aims “to address the underrepresentation of African American and Hispanic faculty at colleges and universities in the state of Florida by increasing the pool of citizens qualified with Ph.D. degrees to teach at the college and university levels,” according to FEF’s website.
The scholarship was established in 1984 and has awarded more than 1,600 scholarships. Those scholarships are funded by the the Florida Education Fund, which was created by a grant from the McKnight Foundation and now operates on money from that grant and state funds, according to Florida law.
Applicants must be Hispanic or African American, a U.S. citizen and hold a minimum of a bachelor’s degree from a regionally accredited college or university.
According to the letter, the feds maintain USF is in violation because it receives federal funds and promotes the McKnight scholarship, which “provides graduate school funding exclusively for full-time doctoral students who are African American or Hispanic.”
The upshot? “Discrimination on the bases of race, color, and national origin will not be tolerated,” the letter says. Requests for comment are pending with spokespeople for USF and the State University System in Tallahassee.
The federal investigation is part of an attack on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in higher education institutions, both private and public, across the United States.
In this instance, the agency is investigating the McKnight scholarship and “The Ph.D. Project,” a program for graduate students, which they say “limits eligibility based on the race of participants.”
“Students must be assessed according to merit and accomplishment, not prejudged by the color of their skin. We will not yield on this commitment,” U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a press release last week.
The McKnight scholarship was established in 1984 and has awarded more than 1,600 scholarships. Those scholarships are funded by the the Florida Education Fund, which was created by a grant from the McKnight Foundation and now operates on money from that grant and state funds, according to Florida law.
Florida law says the Florida Education Fund must use the income of the fund to provide for programs that seek to “increase the representation of minorities in faculty and administrative positions in higher education in this state and to provide more highly educated minority leadership in business and professional enterprises in this state.”
The Florida Board of Governors prohibited state public universities from spending money on DEI in January 2024, but nine public higher education institutions in Florida participate in the McKnight scholarship program, according to FEF’s website.
Only USF, however, was sent a letter about the scholarship.
The letter also directs USF to hand over data, like the number of scholarship recipients categorized by race and national origin and ethnicity enrolled in the university’s doctoral programs in 2022-25, and the names and titles of all the university employees in charge of choosing which students could participate. The university must respond to the request by March 31.
USF was one of seven institutions in the country under investigation for “alleged impermissible race-based scholarships and race-based segregation,” according to the department.
As the federal and state government continue to hammer their anti-DEI agenda into law, some Florida universities have scrubbed their websites of scholarships, student spotlights and other material to remain compliant and under the radar as the state.
In early March, Florida State University’s President Richard McCullough sent out a message to faculty and staff informing them the university was making changes to its website to comply with federal executive orders.
Included was a list of the words being removed, which included “antiracist,” “cultural relevance,” “segregation,” and “woman.”
Ana Goñi-Lessan, state watchdog reporter for the USA TODAY Network – Florida, can be reached at agonilessan@gannett.com. 

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