Jews need not apply? Department of Education PhD grant program rules are 'racist,' suit says

The Department of Education is excluding Asians, whites, "Arabs and other Middle Eastern ethnicities … many Latinos and some Africans" from a $60 million program for students from "disadvantaged backgrounds" unless they meet a two-prong exception, a new lawsuit alleges.

The McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program, named after the black scientist who died in the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion, awards grants to colleges to prepare undergraduates "for doctoral studies through involvement in research and other scholarly activities," with a goal of increasing PhDs "from underrepresented segments of society."

The eligibility page says "at least two-thirds of the participants must be low-income, potential first-generation college students," and the remaining "may be from groups that are underrepresented in graduate education."

The requirements are "racist and blatantly unconstitutional," the Young America's Foundation said in a press release. 

Its student co-plaintiffs, the University of North Dakota's Avery Durfee and University of Wisconsin Madison's Benjamin Rothove, qualify for McNair in all respects but one, according to YAF: They're white. 

A UND official told first-generation student Durfee she doesn't qualify because of her race and must also be low-income to meet the two-prong exception, while a UWM official told Rothove his race disqualifies him, full stop, since he's not low-income or first-generation.

UND's Young Americans for Freedom affiliate and YAF itself have members ineligible because of their race as well, the suit says. "This is the 21st Century – why are we continuing to separate and divide students?" Rothove asked rhetorically in the press release.

The plaintiffs claim the program flatly violates last year's Students for Fair Admissions ruling by the Supreme Court, which struck down racial preferences in admissions while letting colleges consider race if an applicant brings it up and it's "concretely tied to a quality of character or unique ability that the particular applicant can contribute to the university." 

The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, which often challenges programs that allegedly exclude by race, are representing the plaintiffs.

It sued the Wisconsin Bar for a "diversity clerkship program" limited to students from backgrounds "historically excluded from the legal field​​." WILL made The Wall Street Journal earlier this month for a federal civil rights complaint against the Cleveland Clinic's minority-only stroke and men's health programs, saying they violate Title VI and the Affordable Care Act.

They are seeking preliminary injunctions to prevent the feds from enforcing race-based qualifications, require them to notify McNair program institutions including UND and UWM that those qualifications are null, and declare the qualifications unconstitutional in violation of the Equal Protection Clause and set them aside under the Administrative Procedure Act.

A department press officer identified only as Jo Ann told Just the News it "does not comment on pending litigation" and did not answer two requests to clarify the program's eligibility criteria and whether their likely, if not intentional, effect was to exclude based on race.

The program covered nearly 6,000 students in the prior academic year, with an average annual grant of $220,000 per institution to cover at least 24 students, the suit says. It offers "internships, seminars, tutoring, academic counseling, research opportunities, mentoring, and a stipend worth several thousand dollars," the suit says.

Its limitation to "underrepresented" students is a "euphemism" for minority groups the feds prefer, applying a "stereotype" that assumes all students of a particular skin color "need help," according to the plaintiffs. 

Federal law defines the term, applied to graduate education, as non-Hispanic black, Hispanic, American Indian, Alaskan Native, Native Hawaiians and Native American Pacific Islanders. 

Excluded groups are expansive, the suit says: students "from the Middle East to far-east Asia," Caucasians, Jews including Mizrahi, Ashkenazi and Sephardic ethnic groups and religious sects such as Hasidic, Brazilians and other non-Hispanic Caribbeans, South and Central Americans, and Arabs in Africa.

The feds can't pass the buck to recipients of the grants, including the plaintiffs' institutions, because racial considerations "derive solely from federal law and the acts and authority of Defendants," the suit says.