A Minnesota college scholarship named after George Floyd and only offered to black students prompted a complaint with the US Department of Education, with one opponent labeling it “racism.”
The Equal Protection Project of the Legal Insurrection Foundation, a conservative legal advocacy group, has filed a complaint against North Central University for discriminating against non-black students based on race, color, and national origin.
“Discrimination against white applicants is just as unlawful as discrimination against black or other non-white applicants,” said foundation President William Jacobson and project member Ameer Benno in the complaint filed with the DOE Office of Civil Rights.
Jacobson, a Cornell Law School professor and project organizer, said in a statement to The Post that the 2020 death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police generated a focus on “alleged systemic racism” on campuses across the United States.
“Regardless of whether you believe in the racial narrative of the case, it does society no good to inject more racism into the educational system through discriminatory scholarships,” the statement went on to say.
“Unfortunately, many schools and universities have bought into the ‘anti-racist’ movement claim that the solution to past discrimination is current prejudice. Such’reverse-racism’ is simply racism and is not the solution.”
The institution declined to respond, and the DOE stated that it would not confirm the complaint unless it decided to begin an official investigation.
According to the NCU website, the George Floyd award is only available to students who are “Black or African American, that is, a person with origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa.”
The winner applicant is offered a four-year, full-tuition scholarship to NCU, a Christian school in Minneapolis.
The complaint alleges that the restriction violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Derek Chauvin, 44, a white police officer, was convicted of the murder of Floyd, 46, after videos showed him pinning him beneath his knee for more than nine minutes on May 25, 2020.
The assassination of Floyd, a black man, triggered rallies against racial disparity and police violence.
The scholarship challenge follows the US Supreme Court’s June ruling that colleges’ “affirmative action” admissions procedures were unconstitutional and must be repealed.
EPP/Legal Insurrection has filed discrimination cases against various race-based exclusionary or preferential programs, including at SUNY Buffalo Law School, Medical School, and SUNY Albany.