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A 19th-century law created to protect Black Americans from racist violence has been invoked to end a scholarship program meant for Black students at the University of California, San Diego.
According to the Washington Post, the Pacific Legal Foundation, a conservative law firm, successfully argued that the scholarship program violated the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, a law passed after the Civil War to shield newly freed Black Americans from White supremacist intimidation and discrimination.
The foundation represented Kai Peters, a white transfer student who was ineligible for the scholarship, arguing that the program violated his civil rights.
“We’re simply trying to ensure that promise of equal protection is granted to everyone,” Jack Brown, an attorney for the firm, said.
Legal scholars say the lawsuit weaponized a law meant to protect Black people to instead dismantle a program designed to support them.
“It’s an attack on private efforts to use money to pursue what you consider a social justice purpose,” Cara McClellan, a University of Pennsylvania law professor, said. “They’re flipping the purpose of the law on its face.”
The decision forces UC San Diego to open the scholarship to all students, effectively ending its mission to assist Black scholars. Experts say it reflects a broader national trend of targeting race-conscious programs in higher education amid the Trump administration’s rollback of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
“It’s their spin, right, that these types of scholarships are somehow fostering discrimination, when in reality, the intent is the exact opposite,” Julie Park, a professor at the University of Maryland, said in a statement.
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