Piggybacking on the Supreme Court ruling banning the consideration of race in college admissions, a lawsuit has been filed challenging two scholarships designed to benefit students of color including Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.
The Equal Protection Project of the Legal Insurrection Foundation filed suit this week against Western Kentucky University, reports Fox.
EFP alleges the scholarships “are only available to non-White students.”
The lawsuit from EFP follows a decision by the Missouri Attorney General last month directing all universities to stop considering race in scholarships while the president of the University of Kentucky said it should do the same, USA Today reports.
“The assault on affirmative action was simply the foundation to go after everything,” tweeted Walter M. Kimbrough, former president of Dillard University in Louisiana. “Affirmative action bans won’t have the reach that ending these scholarship programs will.”
The founding director of EFP agreed that the supreme court ruling will go beyond just admissions.
“I don’t view the Supreme Court ruling with the narrow focus of affirmative action in admissions, or even affirmative action in general; it’s an equal protection decision,” William Jacobson said to Inside Higher Education. “It would certainly be in colleges’ best interest to change their policies now if they aren’t already compliant … Whatever the challenges were that failed before the decision, if those practices are ongoing, I don’t see why they can’t be challenged anew.”
Under the Western Kentucky University Distinguished Minority Fellowship, students received up to “nine hours of resident face-to-face tuition costs for the completion of a primary graduate degree,” plus a stipend of $15,000 per academic year.
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Its athletic scholarship offers is designed to “enhance the success of students of color.” Recipients receive $1,000 per semester.
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