Blacks-only George Floyd Scholarship 'Racially Discriminatory,' Federal Complaint Says

According to a legal complaint filed with the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights on Monday, the George Floyd Memorial Scholarship, a university scholarship only offered to Black students, violates US federal civil rights law.

In a complaint shared with The College Fix, the legal watchdog group Equal Protection Project of the Legal Insurrection Foundation claimed North Central University's George Floyd scholarship infringes Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forbids educational institutions from racial discrimination because it is only open to Black students.

George Floyd Scholarship Receives Criticisms

According to the complaint, the private Christian university in Minneapolis, Minnesota, engages in unfair discrimination based on race, color, and national origin through its George Floyd Memorial Scholarship.

The information page claimed that students must be Black or African American, that is, a person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa, to be eligible for the scholarship.

North Central University President Scott Hagan announced the scholarship on June 4, 2020, to invest like never before in a new generation of young black Americans who are poised and ready to take leadership in the nation.

On Monday, Equal Protection founder William Jacobson emailed The College Fix that the George Floyd Scholarship eligibility requirements are racially discriminatory. He added that regardless of the purpose of the racial discrimination, it is wrong and unlawful.

Furthermore, Jacobson said that NCU must create a restorative plan to compensate students who have been shut out of the George Floyd Scholarship due to discrimination.

According to a footnote in the complaint, the watchdog group further alleges that the university defies the civil rights protections of Minnesota's Human Rights Act, which makes it a criminal offense for an educational institution to limit access to any educational program based on race.

Jacobson told The College Fix that it is clear that discriminating based on race to achieve diversity is not lawful following the Supreme Court's decision to reverse affirmative action last summer.

He claimed that, as Chief Justice Roberts wrote in the majority opinion, eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it. He added that NCU knows better than running educational scholarships that exclude race-based students.

Furthermore, he noted that NCU's nondiscrimination policies forbid racial discrimination.

Minneapolis Marks Two Year Anniversary Since Death Of George Floyd By Police Officer — MINNEAPOLIS, MN - MAY 25: A woman looks at a mural on the wall of Cup Foods during a vigil for George Floyd on May 25, 2022, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It has been two years since Minneapolis Police killed George Floyd. (Photo: Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

Death of Floyd Sparks Protests

Just hours had passed since Floyd's death when the movement started. People flocked to the South Minneapolis junction where he was killed just after Memorial Day, driven by word-of-mouth and a horrifying video, demanding an end to police violence against Black Americans.

The period of widespread sorrow and rage has swiftly led to a year-long national discussion on what it means to be Black in America. US history's largest mass protest campaign started with nationwide demonstrations in big and small communities.

Later, almost 170 Confederate symbols were changed or eliminated from public areas during the next several months. As the country struggled with Floyd's death, "Black Lives Matter" became prominent.

Over the next 11 months, calls for racial justice would impact nearly every facet of American life on a scale that historians say had not happened since the civil rights movement of the 1960s.