I’ll have to check the Civil Rights Act to confirm, but I’m pretty sure this is illegal, too.
In fact, “whites-only” anything is viewed as the ultimate form of unfairness, injustice, flat-out racism, and the root of all the world’s evil.
Conservative groups likely will challenge the scholarship program. Will liberal groups do the same? They balked at a satirical whites-only scholarship offered by College Republicans at Boston University a few years ago. Surely they’ll balk over the Oregon League of Minority Voters’s scholarships.
I’m surprised people still come up with such schemes, given their clear illegality. Why would the voters’ group risk wasting resources on litigation and undermining its credibility with donors?
A decade ago, a federal judge ordered two historically black colleges in Alabama to set up programs to attract white students after both schools accused the state of treating predominantly black colleges differently than predominantly white colleges. It’s safe to say most whites aren’t inclined to apply to predominately black colleges. To sweeten the pot, at least one of the colleges offered a whites-only scholarship. A black student named Jessie Tompkins sued. Tompkins was represented by the Center for Individual Rights. (Source)
Because the Oregon League of Minority Voters receives some public funding, it’s also safe to say the whites-only scholarship won’t stand, nor should it. Only privately funded sources like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation are allowed to prohibit people of certain races from applying for money. (No whites need apply.)
The minority voters group must know the race-based scholarships won’t stand. Could it be a publicity stunt to “raise awareness” among mostly white Oregonians to do their part to narrow racial disparities that have little to do with racism and a lot to do with individuals’ personal choices and/or lack of responsibility?
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