SIU School of Medicine scholarship challenged on race, gender identity discrimination grounds

A federal complaint has been filed against Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, citing civil rights issues with a scholarship offered to plastic surgery residents.

Filing with the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights last month, the Equal Protection Project — a non-profit, anti-affirmative action organization — alleges the university is unlawfully discriminating on the basis of race, sexual orientation and gender identity.

The scholarship in question, the Tracey Meares Scholarship, is eligible to U.S. citizens in their fourth year of medical school in "good academic standing." Where EPP founder and Cornell law professor William A. Jacobson takes issue are the race and gender identity-based criteria.

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Per the SIU School of Medicine website, the scholarship is open to students who are Black, Hispanic or Native American and those identifying as LGBTQ+. The award winner receives a $1,000 stipend to cover housing and travel costs throughout a four-week resident rotation.

Jacobson described the qualifications as "unusual" and in violation of the 14th Amendment.

"We have seen many and have challenged many that discriminate on the basis of race," he said in a recent interview. "We've never seen one before that also discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, but this one does."

The scholarship is named after 1984 Springfield High School valedictorian Tracey Meares, who was denied that honor until 2022 after a public screening of the documentary "No Title for Tracey" in Springfield, shining a national spotlight on the story.

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Meares would have become the school's first Black valedictorian, but no valedictorian or salutatorian was named that year. She is now a legal scholar at Yale University. Offered to students since April 2022, the scholarship was created to "provide equitable opportunities for students underrepresented in medicine."

Responding to the complaint, SIU School of Medicine Chief Marketing and Communications Officer Rikeesha Phelon said "this matter is under review."

Jacobson said the admitted goals of providing opportunities for underrepresented communities can still be done, but must be in accordance with federal law.

"If you want to achieve diversity, you just can't do it through racial discrimination," he said. "You can do it through better outreach, you can do it through better education. You can do it many different ways, but you can't erect a program that says certain groups may not apply based on race, and that's the problem."

The federal civil rights office reviews complaints based on violations such as Title IX, prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex, and Title VI, prohibiting discrimination based on race or national origin, which are at the center of the SIU complaint.

Jacobson is asking OCR to open an investigation into the scholarship and is requesting the university to provide "remedial relief" to those who said have been excluded — primarily white and non-Pacific Islander Asian-American applicants. If the office takes up the case, the complaint also suggests imposing fines, suspending federal funding, or involving the U.S. Department of Justice in legal proceedings to ensure compliance.

The challenge to the SIU scholarship follows dozens in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court landmark decision finding the use of race-based admissions in public universities unconstitutional.

This case, Jacobson contends, would still have qualified as discrimination before the nation's high court issued its ruling last June. The ruling also has a broader applicability than admissions, he said.

"We don't view the Students for Fair Admissions (Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College) as an affirmative action case," he said. "It's really an equal protection case."

Since the court's ruling, EPP has filed dozens of similar challenges against minority scholarships, summer study, and residency programs in universities nationwide. Most recently, the Rhode Island-based group filed a complaint against Western Illinois University claiming the school offers 16 discriminatory scholarships.

Contact Patrick M. Keck: 312-549-9340, pkeck@gannett.com, twitter.com/@pkeckreporter.

This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Federal civil rights complaint filed against SIU School of Medicine