The legal activist behind the successful U.S. Supreme Court challenge to affirmative action in college admissions is now taking on an Illinois minority scholarship program for aspiring teachers.
Edward Blum’s group, the American Alliance for Equal Rights, has sued Illinois officials over the 32-year-old Minority Teachers of Illinois Scholarship Program, which awards as much as $7,500 per year to qualified minority applicants.
Applicants must be American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, or Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander. Blum’s group asserts that such a race-based qualification violates the 14th Amendment’s equal-protection clause.
“Such blatant race-based discrimination against individuals who could otherwise contribute to a robust teacher pipeline in Illinois serves no compelling government purpose,” says the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Springfield, the state capital. “It is demeaning, patronizing, un-American, and unconstitutional.”
Another group founded by Blum, Students for Fair Admissions, was behind the legal challenges to race-based admissions at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina. The Supreme Court in 2023 struck down both programs and largely invalidated the consideration of race as it had been practiced in admissions for nearly 50 years.
Although the landmark decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College did not address minority scholarships or other race-conscious education policies outside of admissions, the ruling has sparked a host of challenges to other forms of race-conscious programs in government, business, the legal profession, and nonprofit organizations.
For example, the Smithsonian Institution opened up a Latino museum studies internship program to non-Latinos after the American Alliance for Equal Rights filed a lawsuit.
Some legal experts believe the logic of the Supreme Court’s admissions decision would extend to minority scholarship programs, and some states have moved to end them or open them to all regardless of race.
Soon after the Supreme Court admissions decision, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, a Republican, instructed state universities and local governments to end a variety of race-conscious policies, including minority scholarships.
“All Missouri programs that make admitting decisions by disfavoring individuals based on race—not just college admissions, but also scholarships, employment, law reviews, etc.—must immediately adopt race-blind standards,” Bailey declared in July 2023.
Several K-12 programs under challenge after high court ruling
Erin Wilcox, a lawyer with the Pacific Legal Foundation, which is challenging many race-conscious programs nationwide and is representing Blum’s group in the lawsuit, said there are numerous education programs subject to greater legal scrutiny in light of the Harvard decision.
“These are legacy programs that have been in place for decades, and no one has challenged them and they stayed in place year after year,” she said in an interview.
The Pacific Legal Foundation has also represented parents and others challenging K-12 selective schools in Boston, New York City, and suburban Washington, D.C., that use socioeconomic criteria to promote diversity in student enrollment. The Supreme Court in February passed up reviewing the suburban Washington case, in which a federal appeals court upheld the school’s selection criteria. The justices are currently weighing whether to take up the Boston case.
Pacific Legal is also behind a lawsuit challenging a New York state science and technology program for students who are either economically disadvantaged or members of a minority group that is historically underrepresented in those fields.
Under the program run by the Illinois Student Assistance Commission, which has a current annual budget of $8 million, scholarship recipients pursue teacher training and are contractually obligated to become full-time teachers for at least one year in schools with at least 30 percent minority students.
The lawsuit cites “Member A,” a high school senior who does not qualify for the minority scholarship but intends to pursue a teaching career in Illinois.
“Except for her race, Member A is qualified, ready, willing, and able to apply to the Scholarship Program,” the suit says. The group is suing as an association and Member A is not an individual plaintiff.
A spokeswoman for the Illinois Student Assistance Commission said the agency was reviewing the lawsuit but generally does not comment on pending litigation.
