Illinois Scraps Race-Based Scholarship In Wake of Free Beacon Report
15th April 2025
Illinois has suspended a minority-only scholarship after the Department of Justice threatened to sue the state, the department said Friday. The department’s move, which came in the wake of a Washington Free Beacon report on the program, is the latest example of how the Trump administration’s legal saber-rattling has deterred the use of racial preferences.
The program, which gave minorities financial aid to complete a master’s or doctoral degree, was run by the Illinois Board of Higher Education and included some of the top universities in the state, including Northwestern University and the University of Chicago. Experts told the Free Beacon that the scholarship was patently illegal and could jeopardize the federal funding of every participating school. That is the verdict the Department of Justice reached when it launched its own probe, concluding that the program “unconstitutionally discriminated on the basis of race in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.”
The department threatened to sue Illinois if it did not suspend the initiative. The state complied, telling the department it would halt all activities related to the program until the Illinois General Assembly had an opportunity to review the matter. Six universities, including Northwestern and the University of Chicago, also said that they had ended their participation in the scholarship, which required schools to “verify” that applicants met the racial criteria.