Medical Schools Violating Federal Law With Scholarships Offered to Select Races: Complaints

Five medical schools are violating federal law by offering scholarships to certain races while excluding others, according to new complaints lodged with the U.S. Department of Education (DOE).

The University of Florida College of Medicine, for instance, has a scholarship that is only available to students “who belong to groups that are recognized as historically underrepresented in medicine,” including students who are black or Hispanic. Students have to list their race when applying for a scholarship, and applicants are asked to provide a photograph.

The schools “put out scholarships … and they restricted it to people of certain racial categories, which is not legal,” Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, board chair of Do No Harm, a nonprofit dedicated to protecting patients and doctors from radical policies in the health care industry, told The Epoch Times.

“The idea that they’re going to separate people out on the basis of their race we found to be disturbing and discriminatory,” Goldfarb added.

The group recently sent complaints to the DOE’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR), asserting that of the more than 140 medical schools and institutions nationwide offering “questionable scholarships,” the five schools in question “are particularly noteworthy” for their discriminatory programs.

The programs violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which states that “no person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance,” the complaints state. They also allegedly violate the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause.

The University of Oklahoma–Tulsa School of Community Medicine, one of the five, provides a stipend to students for a 4-week elective, but applicants have to be of a certain race, such as black or native Hawaiian.

The University of Utah School of Medicine’s Division of Otolaryngology, meanwhile, has a scholarship that it will only award to students who identify as “URiM,” or “American Indian or Alaska Native, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latinx, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander.”

The University of Minnesota Medical School and the Medical College of Wisconsin were also named as offenders in the complaints for offering similar requirements for grants or scholarships.

The schools did not respond to requests for comment.

“OCR is unable to confirm the receipt of any particular complaint,” the DOE told The Epoch Times in an email. “OCR evaluates every complaint that it receives to determine whether it is appropriate to open an investigation.”