- On June 29, the U.S. Supreme Court dropped a bombshell, ruling out the consideration of race in college admissions.
- That very same day, the Republican Missouri Attorney General, Andrew Bailey, went a step further. He fired off a letter to school leaders insisting that all programs that so much as ‘hinted’ at racial preference — be it in admissions, scholarships, employment, law reviews, etc. — must immediately stop.
- In the wake of this seismic Supreme Court ruling and Bailey’s letter, the University of Missouri System announced they will immediately eliminate all race-based scholarships & stop considering race and ethnicity when deciding on scholarships.
- If you were already granted a scholarship, the University of Missouri System says they will honor any scholarships handed out before this ruling came down.
In their most recent assault, far-right extremists and the Republican Party are pushing the affirmative action war beyond the admissions process, now taking aim at and demanding the immediate removal of any scholarship that helps Black and brown people.
“It took Republicans no time at all to take the Supreme Court’s affirmative action decision and use it to attack other educational initiatives intended to support people of color,” wrote Rolling Stone.
Missouri’s attorney general, Andrew Bailey, sent a letter to colleges and universities stating that “Missouri institutions must identify all policies that give preference to individuals on the basis of race and immediately halt the implementation of such policies.”
How Schools Are Responding
The University of Missouri system also put out a statement, “As allowed by prior law, a small number of our programs and scholarships have used race/ethnicity as a factor for admissions and scholarships,” continuing “Those practices will be discontinued, and we will abide by the new Supreme Court ruling concerning legal standards that applies to race-based admissions and race-based scholarships.
They went on to say they “will honor our financial aid commitments that have already been awarded to our returning and incoming students,” according to the statement. “These awards were lawfully issued under previous Supreme Court and U.S. Department of Education interpretations,” the statement reads.
Justin Draeger, President of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA), replied in a statement that the NASFAA will “work with member institutions to ensure we understand these legal ramifications and how they will impact financial aid policies and practices now and in the future.”
“The Supreme Court has now ruled on the matter, and we must all respect and uphold the law of the land,” he continued said in a media release. “However, we cannot ignore the fact that racial and ethnic gaps in college access and attainment persist, and these disparities must be addressed, even within this new legal framework.”
This chain of events is deeply concerning for our Black community here in Kansas City and across the nation. The Supreme Court’s decision did not directly tackle the issue of race-based scholarships. But the words “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it,” have been extracted, twisted, and wielded as a tool to justify these oppressive moves.
This is a developing story.
