Four Discriminatory Scholarships at Jacksonville (AL) State Challenged By Equal Protection Project
“Preference will be given to a student in a minority group”
The Equal Protection Project (EqualProtect.org) is a project of the Legal Insurrection Foundation devoted to fighting unlawful discrimination in all forms. While most of our cases have involved race, color, and national origin discrimination, we will challenge all forms of unlawful discrimination, including sex discrimination.
Since its launch, EPP has challenged over 800 discriminatory programs and scholarships at more than 275 colleges and universities. This is done to ensure that every student has the opportunity to compete on equal terms.
Our most recent filing on March 17, 2026, was a Civil Rights Complaint against Jacksonville State (“Jax State”):
We bring this civil rights complaint against Jacksonville State University (“Jax State”), in Jacksonville, Alabama, for offering, administering, and promoting four (4) scholarships that discriminate on the basis of sex, race, color, and/or national origin in violation of Title IX and Title VI, respectively.
Students are considered automatically for many scholarships at Jax State based on their initial “JaxApp” scholarship application. Students must complete this application by February 1 every year. So long as students meet the requirements, they will be considered.
We then go on to list the scholarships at issue and why we believe they violate the Civil Rights Act:
The scholarships listed below are currently offered to Jax State students and applicants for admission, according to the Jax State website, and violate Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (“Title IX”) and its implementing regulations3 by discriminating against students based on their sex, or Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VI”) and its implementing regulations by discriminating against students based on their race and skin color. Because Jax State is a public university, these discriminatory scholarships also violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
SCHOLARSHIPS THAT VIOLATE TITLE IX (3)
1. Darlene Hocutt-Watson Annual Scholarship
Link: https://jsu.scholarships.ngwebsolutions.com/Scholarships/Search
Archived Link: http://archive.today/zRBv0
Discriminatory Requirement: “Preference will be given to a female. “2. Dr. Louise J. Clark Memorial Scholarship
Link: https://jsu.scholarships.ngwebsolutions.com/Scholarships/Search
Archived Link: http://archive.today/zRBv0
Discriminatory Requirement: “Established in memory of Dr. Louise J. Clark by her son,
Jeff Clark, to promote the education of deserving full-time undergraduate students and/or
graduate female students who are admitted to the JSU MBA program.”3. JSU Faculty Women’s Club of Jacksonville
Link: https://jsu.scholarships.ngwebsolutions.com/Scholarships/Search
Archived Link: http://archive.today/zRBv0
Discriminatory Requirement: “Established by the Faculty Women’s Club of Jacksonville
State University for the benefit of a deserving full-time undergraduate female student
from Calhoun County, Alabama.”SCHOLARSHIPS THAT VIOLATE TITLE VI (1)
1. Nicole Cannon McNair Memorial Endowed Nursing Scholarship
Link: https://jsu.scholarships.ngwebsolutions.com/Scholarships/Search
Archived Link: http://archive.today/zRBv0
Discriminatory Requirement: “Preference will be given to a student in a minority
group”
As we always do, we then spend several pages explaining why the exclusionary scholarships violate not only federal and state law, but also the university’s own non-discrimination rules. We then request that a formal investigation be opened.
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.
Robert Fox is an attorney at the Equal Protection Project, and focuses, among things, on filing civil rights complaints against DEI discrimination.
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Comments
I read your complaint, which includes the applicable law.
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It bothers many of my clients that a person cannot leave a fully-funded legacy gift to a university that contains “discriminatory” criteria. Moreover, it bothers me that a fund, which may have been established years ago, and now is held by the school, either has to sit dormant and unused (or given back? — to whom?) or be awarded to individuals in contravention of the donor’s intent.
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What is your proposed solution?
Isn’t it shameful that people are forbidden by law to put their own money to support people or causes in which they believe?
Doesn’t the First Amendment trump the Fourteenth (which didn’t repeal, repair or amend the First)?
Anyone concerned about restrictions on private scholarship funds donated to a Univ can always keep the funds outside the control of a University. Instead set-up the infrastructure to accept, screen applicants based on whatever criteria you wish, then award or withhold the funds. Make the process entirely private,.outside the control of the University with the application going directly to the donor entity to be evaluated and awarded directly to the chosen applicant.
There’s no ‘grandfather clause’ for 14A equal protection violations or Civil Rights Act violations by public entities. The govt at any level can not engage in prohibited acts of discrimination based on race, sex, ethnicity. No sob stories will be accepted to evade this. It isn’t new, it has been like this since before I was born. What changed is willingness to confront those who wish to engage in unlawful discrimination with vigorous enforcement.
Much higher up-front set-up costs and hassle, incl. IRS, and “getting he word out”, and these kinds of funds not infrequently get offset against other scholarships to which the student otherwise would be entitled. Great for rich people, and discriminates against would-be middleclass donors,
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Meanwhile, the last several decades have shown us that universities have been “unofficially” using DEI criteria, very difficult to detect. Seems to me that a clerical function with purely objective criteria and costs paid up-front is not “government action”.
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Meanwhile, how are existing funds to be handled, such that they are not the equivalent of theft?
It absolutely is govt action if it is going through the Univ. Have an independent volunteer committee run it and select a winning applicant based on whatever criteria you want and the problem is solved. For existing scholarship funds there’s basically two choices;
1. Accept the limitations of university/govt affiliation that prohibit discrimination and revise the criteria so they are no longer discriminatory
2. Sever the tie to the University/govt in receiving, reviewing and selecting applications to determine a winning recipient and do that externally to the Univ. Then the criteria can be whatever you want. Presumably the original grant had specific terms the Univ accepted and agreed to perform so where they Univ can no longer meet the terms of the grant they gotta release the funds back to the donor/group.
It really isn’t as complicated as you want to make it.
“…release the funds back to the donor/group.” The middleclass donor is long dead, and one reason for the charitable donation frequently is the absence of close family. Who is going to be “accepting the limitations” at this point?
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It sounds as if you either don’t deal with this issue very much, or else do but only for very wealthy donors, not for people with $500K to a few million dollars to donate. With sufficient objective award criteria, and costs reimbursed from the grant, it’s not government action but a clerical function.
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So I guess it’s goodbye to scholarships such as “highest-scoring SAT descendant of an Irish indentured servant” or “divided eadh year among children of Norwegian farmers who are majoring in food science”… Goodbye to middleclass individuals being able to grant scholarships that have personal meaning to them. Aren’t they also taxpayers entitled to have their donations administered by government?
I appreciate the work being done here. I have been reading about American medical students not being able to obtain residencies. Is there any tie-in that anyone knows of?
Please correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that discrimination in awarding individual scholarships is allowed if the university makes offsetting scholarships so that the overall impact provides an equal result to all.
Cornell has a financial aid formula based upon family resources, number of children, etc. If the formula says you get $50,000 in scholarship and $10,000 in student loans, then there is no disadvantage if the student’s scholarship is paid out of the Louise J Clark Scholarship, the William Jacobson Scholarship or a cross-subsidy collected from the students paying full freight. Where is the discriminatory intent, if student names are paired up with specific donors so long as the size of scholarships or loans are not impacted?
It would be wrong if a female student got a $50,000 scholarship and a $10,000 loan while a similar male student got a $10,000 scholarship and a $50,000 loan.