UC San Diego and the San Diego Foundation have agreed, as part of a legal settlement, to allow students of all races and ethnicities to apply for a scholarship that was previously only available to Black students, according to the group that sued the university over allegations of racial discrimination.<\/p>\n
The Californians for Equal Rights Foundation, or CFER, filed its lawsuit in July alleging the Black Alumni Scholarship Fund was unconstitutional and \u201cracially exclusive\u201d because it was only awarded to Black students. The lawsuit alleged that UCSD and Chancellor Pradeep Khosla had full knowledge that the scholarship, which was established in 1983 and administered by the San Diego Foundation since 1998, \u201cdiscriminates based on race.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Monday, after very little public litigation in the federal lawsuit, CFER and its attorneys announced that UCSD had agreed to change the name of the scholarship<\/a> to the Goins Alumni Scholarship Fund and open it up to non-Black students. CFER and its attorneys subsequently asked a judge Monday to dismiss the case.<\/p>\n \u201cThis victory proves that the Constitution\u2019s promise of equality before the law still has teeth,\u201d Jack Brown, the lead attorney from the Pacific Legal Foundation, which represented the plaintiffs, said in a statement. \u201cThe Ku Klux Klan Act was written to stop government actors from conspiring with private parties to discriminate \u2014 and that\u2019s exactly what happened here. When faced with the law, UCSD and its affiliates had no choice but to retreat. The action here is exactly what we demanded in our lawsuit.\u201d<\/p>\n The Ku Klux Klan Act is another name for the Civil Rights Act of 1871, which according to the Federal Judicial Center<\/a>, \u201cwas designed in large part to protect African Americans from Klan violence during Reconstruction.\u201d The act gave those deprived of a constitutional right by someone acting under color of law the ability to seek relief in federal court.<\/p>\n Congress later codified that act in the United States Code, and it\u2019s now one of the main federal laws used by victims of police violence to hold officers accountable for violating their civil rights.<\/p>\n In this lawsuit, the racial dynamic of the Ku Klux Klan Act was turned on its head, with the plaintiffs alleging that UCSD and the San Diego Foundation were illegally conspiring to unfairly favor Black students and discriminate against non-Black students.<\/p>\n The plaintiffs \u2014 including UCSD junior Kai Peters, who is White, and other unnamed, non-Black CFER members \u2014 alleged they \u201chave suffered and continue to suffer injuries as a direct and proximate result of Defendants\u2019 racially discriminatory conduct \u2026 The denial of access to educational resources on the basis of race has caused them tangible harm, including lost opportunities for financial support, mentoring relationships, and professional development.\u201d<\/p>\n In a statement, UCSD said it was pleased the lawsuit was amicably resolved.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are grateful to all of our community supporters who have generously given to fund scholarships for UC San Diego students and we are committed to complying with all federal and state anti-discrimination laws,\u201d the university statement said.<\/p>\n A spokesperson for the San Diego Foundation \u2014 a charitable organization and the region\u2019s largest community fund that provides grants to other local nonprofits \u2014 declined to answer questions about the settlement, citing a policy of not commenting on litigation matters, even once closed. The foundation did not mention the settlement when it announced last week that it had renamed the scholarship fund<\/a>\u00a0after\u00a0its founder, Lennon Goins, a UCSD alumnus<\/a> who for decades ran a dental practice near the university.<\/p>\n \u201cDr. Goins came from a poor sharecropper family in the South and exemplifies for all of us the power of education to transform lives,\u201d Ed Spriggs, the chair of the scholarship fund\u2019s executive committee, said in the news release. \u201cThis scholarship ensures his passion and generosity live on through the success of UC San Diego students.\u201d<\/p>\n Spriggs, a retired associate vice chancellor at UCSD who founded the Black Student Union while a student on campus in the 1960s, was also named as a defendant in the lawsuit. He did not respond to questions about the settlement or the scholarship fund\u2019s name change.<\/p>\n The scholarship fund was established to help increase the proportion of Black graduates from UCSD and to ease their financial burden while obtaining a degree. A 2024 report<\/a> from the American Council on Education found that Black students and other racial minorities continue to earn degrees and stay enrolled through graduation at lower rates than their White and Asian counterparts, and a higher proportion of Black students graduate with student loan debt than other racial groups.<\/p>\n