Civil Rights Complaint Filed Against George Floyd Memorial Scholarship

This put up was initially printed on Defender Community

By Reasla Teague

A federal grievance has been filed in opposition to North Central College in Minneapolis, Minnesota, alleging its George Floyd Memorial Scholarship violates the Civil Rights Act by discriminating in opposition to non-Black college students.

The Authorized Riot Basis, a conservative nonprofit centered on free expression and educational freedom, submitted the grievance on Monday to the U.S. Division of Training Workplace for Civil Rights.

On the heart of the dispute are the scholarship’s racial eligibility necessities. To qualify, candidates should “be a pupil who’s Black or African American, that’s, an individual having origins in any of the black racial teams of Africa,” in response to the college’s tips.

The grievance argues that by routinely disqualifying college students who don’t meet this racial prerequisite, the scholarship runs afoul of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which “prohibits discrimination on the idea of race, colour and nationwide origin in packages and actions receiving federal monetary help.”

“Discrimination in opposition to white candidates is simply as illegal as discrimination in opposition to Black or different non-white candidates,” said the grievance’s authors, civil rights lawyer Ameer Benno and Cornell College legislation professor William Jacobson. “No matter NCU’s causes for sponsoring and selling the GFMS [scholarship], it’s violating Title VI by doing so.”

North Central College has not but publicly responded to the allegations. The George Floyd Memorial Scholarship was established in 2020 “to contribute towards the academic promise of aspiring younger black American leaders,” in response to the college.

Purposes stay open for the 2024-25 educational yr, with a recipient set to be chosen by June. Nevertheless, the Authorized Riot Basis’s grievance casts authorized doubt on the scholarship’s racial eligibility standards.

Whereas the intentions behind creating an honor for George Floyd could have been well-meaning, the competing pursuits of racial fairness and adhering to federal non-discrimination legal guidelines have seemingly collided over this explicit scholarship program.