Illinois Runs a Scholarship That Excludes White Applicants. It Could Get the State’s Top Universities Defunded.
13th March 2025
The Illinois Board of Higher Education runs a scholarship program for graduate students that explicitly excludes white applicants, a move lawyers say is unconstitutional and could jeopardize the federal funding of more than two dozen participating universities, including Northwestern University and the University of Chicago.
The program, Diversifying Higher Education Faculty in Illinois (DFI), was established by state law in 2004 and provides financial aid to “members of traditionally underrepresented minority groups” pursuing masters or doctoral degrees. Those groups include “African American, Hispanic American, Native American, Asian American, Alaskan Native, and Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander,” according to the program’s landing page.
Students apply to the program through their universities, each of which has an “institutional representative” who helps “verify … that applicants for the fellowship meet all eligibility criteria.” That structure means that participating institutions, which include the top public and private universities in the state, are directly involved in an application process that violates federal law, according to five attorneys who reviewed the program requirements.
“This isn’t a hard one,” said Gail Heriot, a law professor at the University of San Diego and a commissioner on the U.S Commission on Civil Rights. “The program was illegal and unconstitutional since its inception.”