Twelve Discriminatory Scholarships at U Missouri-St. Louis Challenged By Equal Protection Project
It’s always of interest when we find open discrimination at public universities in red states that have taken a hard line on DEI.
Our Equal Protection Project has challenged over 275 colleges and universities covering over 750 discriminatory programs and scholarships. Our Year-End 2025 Impact Report has the statistics and the recognition of our impact, even by mainstream media.
It’s always of interest when we find open discrimination at public universities in red states that have taken a hard line on DEI. Our most recent filing was just such a case, on February 26, 2026, was against the University of Missouri – St. Louis (UMSL).
From the Civil Rights Complaint filed with the Office for Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education:
We bring this civil rights complaint against the University of Missouri – St. Louis (UMSL) for offering, administering, and promoting twelve (12) scholarships that discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, and/or sex in violation of Title VI and Title IX, respectively….
The scholarships listed below are currently offered to UMSL students and applicants for admission, according to the UMSL website, and violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VI”) and its implementing regulations4 by discriminating against students based on their race and skin color, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (“Title IX”) and its implementing regulations5 by discriminating against students based on their sex, or both.6 Because UMSL is a public university, these discriminatory scholarships also violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
We then go on to list the scholarships, quoting the discriminatory eligibility factors, with link, archived links, and screenshots, followed by a detailed discussion of the law. Five scholarships violate Title VI, one violated Titles VI and IX, and six violate Title IX.
Local Fox News 2 covered the filing:
A new federal civil rights complaint was filed against the University of Missouri – St. Louis for discrimination, one group says.
The Equal Protection Project (EPP), a non-profit organization under the Legal Insurrection Foundation that “is devoted to the fair treatment of all persons without regard to race or ethnicity,” announced a new complaint Thursday afternoon, alleging Title VI and Title IX violations within several scholarships offered by the school.
They are requesting a formal investigation to be conducted by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights….
“Our goal is not to end the scholarships but to end the discrimination. We want the students to get the funding, every student should have a fair and equal opportunity without regard to race, color, national origin, or sex,” EPP President and Founder William A. Jacobson said.
The complaint mentions the following scholarships and their discriminatory preferences listed:
- Rhonda Knehans-Drake Memorial Scholarship in Data Analytics
- Preference given to underrepresented minority groups
- Sauter, Vicki Endowed Scholarship in Information Systems and Technology
- Preference given to underrepresented minority groups
- Swain O’Leary Family Accounting Scholarship
- Second preference given to underrepresented minority groups
- John Works Memorial Scholarship in History
- Recipient to be a member of an underrepresented minority, who identified as African or African American
- Randy Sanderson Scholarship
- Preference given to African American students
- Jacobs/Sverdrup Engineering Scholarship
- Preference given to minority and women students
- Harriett Woods Leadership Scholarship
- Preference given to female students
- The Hazel L. Kohring Scholarship for Women in Transition
- Candidates to be displaced female students 25 years old or older
- University of Missouri – St. Louis Women Scholarship Fund
- Preferred candidate is a female student
- Women in Chemistry Scholarship
- Preference given to female students 25 years old or older
- Elisabeth Horkits Scholarship Fund
- Primary consideration given to women
- The Women of AT&T Foundation Endowed Scholarship
- Preference given to female students
The group argues that UMSL does not provide any governmental reasoning to justify their preferences and considerations, therefore making it unconstitutional.
“The Equal Protection Project calls on the senior administration of UMSL to make sure nondiscrimination standards are upheld throughout the institution,” Jacobson added….
UMSL responded to FOX 2’s request for comment with the following statement:
“The University is fully committed to following federal laws in its scholarship practices. We will review the complaint and the scholarships it addresses. If we determine that any of the scholarships identified in the complaint are still being offered and are not compliant, we will take steps to bring them into compliance.”
UPDATE:
Soon after the filing of our complaint, the contested scholarships were removed from the school’s scholarship page, but our complaint contains screenshots and archived links.
At some point in the afternoon of February 27, 2026, UMSL issued an updated statement to media, stating that the “scholarship platform” was wrong. Here’s the new statement submitted to us at our contact box:
Thank you for pointing out an error in our University of Missouri-St. Louis website regarding scholarship applications. The university has followed all federal laws in its scholarship practices. The scholarships in question ceased using race-based criteria in June 2023 following the SCOTUS decision. Each donor agreement and associated scholarship criteria had previously been updated in concert with changes to federal laws and Title IX regulations. The scholarship platform had incorrect information that has since been updated.
Justin Roberts
Vice Chancellor Marketing and Communications
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Comments
“Recipient to be a member of an underrepresented minority, who identified as African or African American…” Seems like an opening for some current day Fauxcohontas Warren trickery. “Identifying” is simply being race fluid, to steal our Demsocialist friend’s terminology.
Similarly, you could argue that some of these requirements, while only saying “women,” could be correctly construed as being for biological women, and thus exclude trans”women.”
Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive…..
Professor, you should always put “underrepresented minority” in quotes because tehy often aren’t either. Females are not a minority. The rest are not “representing” anyone, much less a group.
St. Louis is 44-46% white and 42-43% black. Blacks are not “underrepresented,” and whites are also a “minority.”
You have to understand that St. Louis is a deep blue city in a red state. We haven’t had a Republican mayor since 1949. For some elections the choices are Democrat and Green. Go get ’em.