WFB: The University of California, San Diego has eliminated a scholarship for which only blacks are eligible after a conservative nonprofit challenged its legality under the Ku Klux Klan Act, vindicating a novel legal strategy that could be used to challenge similar programs.
UCSD had transferred the scholarship, the Black Alumni Scholarship Fund, to a private nonprofit in order to get around California’s ban on racial preferences. In July, the Pacific Legal Foundation filed a lawsuit against the program, alleging it violated a 19th century law, the Ku Klux Klan Act, that bans conspiracies to deprive people of their civil rights.
The complaint argued the arrangement between UCSD and the nonprofit was one such conspiracy. Rather than take its chances in court, the university renamed the program the “Goins Alumni Scholarship Fund” and opened it to students of all races, according to updated webpages for the program. The Pacific Legal Foundation dropped its case against the school on Monday, saying its clients were satisfied with the changes. more
They open the scholarship up to all races.
Doesn’t mean any other race will ever win it, though.
While I am opposed to the lowering of standards and the use of set-asides in efforts to increase participation of underrepresented populations in higher-ed, I don’t see a real problem with targeted scholarships, though I know that they can be, and are, abused…as can any form of targeted funding.
As to UCSD’s effort to launder scholarship moneys through a shell NGO, that was totally improper, within the context of laws they were attempting to circumvent. However, I feel that going after legitimately independent private scholarship funds for targeting based on race, or any other characteristic, is going too far.
It may be, that to maintain independence, private scholarship funds will need to manage them themselves, or contract with an independent agency, rather than having the scholarship managed by some doofus in the school’s development office (they often treat all scholarship funds as fungible, or worse, measure their egos based on the balances in those funds and refuse to distribute them).
UC San Diego Disguises Race-Based Scholarship Challenged Under KKK Act