Eighteen (18) Discriminatory Scholarships at Bowdoin College Challenged By Equal Protection Project
Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, is a small but highly ranked school that has a disproportionate number of discriminatory scholarships.
The Equal Protection Project (EqualProtect.org) recently reached a milestone — our 100th school, college, or university challenged over DEI discrimination.
Our most recent filiing was on May 21, 2025, against Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, a small but highly ranked school that has a disproportionate number of discriminatory scholarships, as we detailed on our Civil Rights Complaint:
We bring this civil rights complaint against Bowdoin College (“Bowdoin”), a private college, for discrimination in eighteen (18) scholarships and programs based on race, color, or national origin, based on sex, or both, in violation of Title VI and Title IX, respectively.
Most Bowdoin scholarships do not require a separate application.2 Instead, students are automatically considered based on their completed General Application. “Bowdoin uses information from the CSS Profile to determine each student’s eligibility for financial aid.” [image omitted]
The scholarships listed below3 are currently active according to the Bowdoin website, and violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VI”) and its implementing regulations4 by excluding students based on their race, color, or national origin, while other scholarships violate Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (“Title IX”) and its implementing regulations5 by excluding students based on their sex….
As we always do, our Civil Rights Complaint included links, archived links, screenshots, and quotes showing the discriminatory eligibility requirements. Here is a small sample:
I. SCHOLARSHIPS AND PROGRAMS THAT VIOLATE TITLE VI (8)
1. Alice G. and Frederick W. Titus Scholarship Fund
Link: https://bowdoin.academicworks.com/opportunities/41058
Archived Link: https://archive.ph/wip/8HiRC
Discriminatory Requirement: “Preference given to students from minority groups who enhance the diversity of campus.” 63. David and Lauren Herter Scholarship Fund
Link: https://bowdoin.academicworks.com/opportunities/40644
Archived Link: https://archive.ph/wip/iEWDt
Discriminatory Requirement: “Minority students who enhance the College’s diversity.”7. Peter Metcalf Small Scholarship Fund
Link: https://bowdoin.academicworks.com/opportunities/40984
Archived Link: https://archive.is/wip/kWhoG
Discriminatory Requirement: “Established in 1986 to provide scholarship support for Bowdoin undergraduates, with preference for African American students, and then to seniors demonstrating interest in teaching or library work”II. SCHOLARSHIPS THAT VIOLATE BOTH TITLE VI AND TITLE IX (1)
1. Pamela E. Herbert Memorial Scholarship
Link: https://bowdoin.academicworks.com/opportunities/41215
Archived Link: https://archive.ph/wip/cEr5H
Discriminatory Requirement: “with a preference for female minority students”III. SCHOLARSHIPS THAT VIOLATE TITLE IX (9)
1. Corey-Davies Scholarship Fund
Link: https://bowdoin.academicworks.com/opportunities/40645
Archived Link: https://archive.is/wip/woNmH
Discriminatory Requirement: “Established in 2012 with preference to female students from New York City or another metropolitan area who have benefitted from the services of the Children’s Aid Society or an organization with a similar mission”3. Donald F. and Margaret Gallagher Barnes Scholarship Fund
Link: https://bowdoin.academicworks.com/opportunities/40954
Archived Link: https://archive.ph/wip/h5zbD
Discriminatory Requirement: “Female”6. Philip S. and Elisabeth C. Wilder Scholarship Fund
Link: https://bowdoin.academicworks.com/opportunities/40340
Archived Link: https://archive.is/wip/t6wVd
Discriminatory Requirement: “Established in 1973 to provide scholarship support for female Bowdoin undergraduates”
We then detailed how these scholarships violate not only federal law, but also Maine state law and Bowdoin’s own nondiscrimination rules.
The Maine Wire covered the filing:
“Bowdoin should know better than to run scholarships or programs that treat students differently based on race, color, national origin, or sex. Where were the administrators and staff whose jobs supposedly are devoted to preventing discrimination? Why was there no intervention to uphold the legally required equal access to education,” said EPP founder William A. Jacobson.
“That race- and sex-based discriminatory scholarships exist at a highly ranked college is shocking and reflects how Critical Race Theory and its offshoots like Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, are deeply embedded in the campus culture. It is time for higher education everywhere to focus on the inherent worth and dignity of every student rather than categorizing students based on identity groups,” he added….
“Regardless of Bowdoin’s reasons for offering, promoting, and administering such
discriminatory scholarships and programs, Bowdoin is violating Title VI by doing so. It does not matter if the recipient of federal funding discriminates in order to advance a benign ‘intention’ or ‘motivation,’” says the complaint.The scholarships listed in the complaint are all currently accepting applications, with the deadline for applications set for June 30.
“We call on Bowdoin to re-examine the campus culture, including at the faculty and administrative levels, to understand why some forms of discrimination appear to be tolerated,” said Jacobson.
Reminder: we are a small organization going up against powerful and wealthy government and private institutions devoted to DEI discrimination. Donations are greatly needed and appreciated.
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Comments
Not a surprise. As a graduate there, and past president of All Races United (ARU), the on-campus fraternity that encouraged racial non-discrimination, I have become somewhat disillusioned with the racist BS that has overtaken Bowdoin as it has with most other small schools in New England. The simple concept espoused by MLK, where we do not judge a person based on skin color, was the rule while I was in charge. But not so much in the admin side of things, especially when the strong push to grow the endowment caused a change in politics on campus.
Sadly, Bowdoin is also completely all-in on the global warming nonsense. With an emphasis on nonsense.
There is a venue that can be explored — if the Equal Protection Project wants to pursue it. The Bowdoin Summer Program is open to all sorts interesting ideas and conflicting viewpoints. A perfect venue to explore how the college got to have so many racially motivated funding streams. At least it would have been so in the past when I was more involved.
It is a small place. I could ask the president of the college to put together a program where civil discussion and debate could take place. She might tell me to “go away”, but I could try.
Ironic that Bowdoin College, once led by Joshua Chamberlain whose leadership and valor at Gettysburg on ‘little round top’ arguably turned the tide of the Civil War, is practicing the discrimination based on the sorts of demeaning racial categorization that led to the Civil War.