Lawsuit Challenges Federally Funded Fellowship That Discriminates

The Supreme Court’s review this term of the role of race in higher education should have implications far beyond college admissions. More and more government-funded organizations use racial classifications in their programs. Take, for example, a mentoring program started by Health Affairs, the highly prestigious, peer-reviewed healthcare journal. The journal’s publisher, Project HOPE, receives millions of dollars in federal funds every year from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the USAID, and the Department of State. In 2021, the two groups launched the Health Equity Fellowship for Trainees (HEFT) “to advance racial equity in health policy and health services scholarly publishing.” Racial equality is of course both a moral and a legal imperative. The term “equity,” however, which increasingly displaces “equality” nowadays, is sometimes construed as a license to discriminate. This is one example: acceptance into HEFT is limited to minority applicants.

Read more at the National Review.