Mental Health Agency Runs Discriminatory Scholarship Program

For over 50 years, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has operated the Minority Fellowship Program (MFP), an initiative that “aims to reduce health disparities and improve behavioral health care outcomes for racial and ethnic populations.”

To accomplish this, SAMHSA awards grants to eight grantee organizations who in turn administer the program through individualized curricula, typically involving awarding grants and providing opportunities to graduate students and residents in the field of mental health.

For instance, the grantee organization American Psychological Association provides “financial assistance,” “expert training,” “dedicated mentoring” and “networking opportunities” to the lucky students selected.

However, the program appears to have in mind members of certain racial groups as its desired applicants.

According to a fact sheet on the program, “African American, Alaskan Native, American Indian, Asian American, Hispanic/Latino, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander students are especially encouraged to apply.”

And according to a report by the American Psychiatric Association, one of the “grantee” organizations that works with SAMHSA to operate the MFP, just one of the 29 members of the 2024 cohort for the Resident Fellowship Program, an initiative administered through the MFP, was white.

The Council on Social Work Education, another grantee organization, states that the “MFP targets but is not limited to racial/ethnic minority individuals pursuing a doctoral degree in social work.”

But racial discrimination need not be explicitly exclusionary; prioritizing the recruitment of members of certain racial groups for valuable opportunities like the MFP is still discrimination.

In 2025, there is no tenable justification for such racially-targeted initiatives. 

This program should be welcoming to all, and taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize racial discrimination.