Some schools are taking pre-emptive action against Department of Justice (DOJ) investigations and private citizen lawsuits by removing blatantly illegal, racially exclusive language from scholarships and replacing it with the new descriptor, “urban.”
Urban, of course, is code for “black.” Northeastern University has opened its Ujima Scholars program to all students, but with a catch. The program will target students from an “urban background.” (Source)
Questions like, “If Northeastern is already predominately a White university, why should the Ujima programs be used for White students?” uttered by Lula Petty-Edwards, director of the school’s African American Institute, are totally irrelevant to the illegality of racially exclusive scholarships.
Northeastern, a private research university, receives federal (taxpayer-funded) grants. That brings it within the purview of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. (”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.”) In that regard, the school also may want to remove racially exclusive language from other scholarships and fellowships.
I have outlined reasons why I’m against government-mandated race preferences of any kind ad nauseam. If private organizations supported by something or someone other than taxpayers wish to treat people differently based on skin color, that’s their business. But the government has no business in the skin color game. Just ask people who lived through Jim Crow, not the pampered fools of my generation whose only example of “racist” treatment is some white sales clerk looking at them “funny.”
New readers, check out the Race Preferences archive and some of my columns.
Finally, after decades of institutionalized, government-mandated, racially exclusive programs and race-based policies, in violation of the U.S. Constitution, fairness, and decency, citizens are rising up. No matter how much liberals crow on and on about the value of “diversity” — though none has shown or proved or quantified the value of it — such practices cannot be justified, not even on the basis of historical grievances, let alone federal and state laws.
What’s happening at Northeastern is a sign of things to come. In February, the Urban Journalism Workshop opened its program to all students after being sued. The powers that be accepted a white student for a summer workshop but rescinded the acceptance after finding out she was white. The workshop had been open only to “minorities.” By the way, “minorities” also is code for black, with hispanic thrown in for good measure. Although Asians are a minority in the U.S., they are not “preferred” racial minorities in most cases. And whites are minorities in some cities and states, but you’ll never, in your wildest dreams, hear any liberal advocating for skin color preferences on their behalf.
(Example: Whites are a minority in the nation’s capital. If being a minority simply means you’re a member of an “underrepresented” racial group, based on the city’s population, whites ought to be receiving all sorts of government goodies like set-aside contracts because they’re white. That’s obviously discriminatory, right? Well, so is the situation in reverse.)
Last year, DOJ threatened Southern Illinois University with a discrimination lawsuit for offering racially exclusive fellowships. The school settled with DOJ by opening up the fellowships to all students.
As long as government programs and policies designed to benefit blacks aren’t racially exclusive — barring other races from participating or benefiting — I don’t have too many issues with them. The designation “urban” is a compromise of sorts. Having said that, I deeply resent any person, program, or policy that implies blacks should be judged by lowered standards for any reason — poverty, fatherlessness, ignorance, legacy of slavery, hormones, the weather, whatever.
Call me crazy. 
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