U.S. Education Dept. Opens Investigation Into Western Kentucky U Race-Based Scholarship Challenged by Equal Protection Project
According to the application for the AMF scholarship, a student is only an “underrepresented ethnic minority” if he or she is “Black/African-American,” “Black/African Descent,” “Asian, Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander,” “Hispanic/Latino” or “American Indian/Alaskan Native.”7 To be eligible for the DMF scholarship, students “must have minority status.” According to the school, that means that they must be “African American, American Indian/Alaskan Native, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, two or more races or Hispanic/Latino.”10Colleges are facing pressure to stop considering race as a factor when awarding scholarships — adding fuel to a larger debate over what colleges can legally do to promote diversity and equity.
Jacobson said his team caught wind of Western Kentucky’s scholarship programs from a tip a couple of weeks ago , and they determined that the scholarships aren’t labeled as remediation for any specific discrimination on the university’s part — a key requirement for such programs to comply with civil-rights laws, he said….
On September 16, 2023, the U.S. Department of Education , Office for Civil Rights received the complaint you filed against Western Kentucky University . You allege that the University discriminates on the bases of race and national origin by:OCR is opening allegation 1 for investigation. Please note that opening the allegation for investigation in no way implies OCR has made a determination on the merits of the allegation.