University of Missouri Moves To End Race-Based Scholarships

Missouri’s attorney general says the state’s public universities must remove race and ethnicity as criteria in its scholarships, but the University of Missouri System has decided it still needs a state court to clear the move.

The University of Missouri System thinks the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2023 ruling eliminating affirmative action in college admissions allows it to remove race and ethnicity as scholarship criteria, but it still needs a state court to clear the move.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey directed Missouri university leaders to stop considering race and ethnicity in scholarships on the same day that the Supreme Court ruled against affirmative action in college admissions.

The Board of Curators of the University of Missouri filed a petition with the Circuit Court of Boone County in Missouri on May 30. In it, the curators ask that the university system be allowed to reassign money given to the university as gifts to fund scholarships that consider an applicant’s race.

Christian Basi, director of public affairs at the University of Missouri System, told BestColleges this move does not impact students who have already received a scholarship that considers race.

Current students who have already received one of these scholarships will be able to renew the scholarship for as long as they are eligible, he added.

That scholarship was given to that student specifically, with the promise that as long as the student met certain conditions … we would continue to honor that scholarship, Basi said.

The University of Missouri System awarded $190 million in institutional aid last year, Basi said. Of that, $12.3 million in scholarships had a race or ethnicity component, and roughly $1.1 million of that figure came from 6,000 endowments.

The university system included a clause for most endowment donations that said the system has the right to change the terms of scholarships to remain in compliance with federal and state laws, Basi said. As such, the majority of its 6,000 endowment scholarships are not impacted by this recent court petition.

Some endowments older than 25 years, however, did not have this clause.

Basi said the University of Missouri System reached out to donors for permission to change the terms of scholarships.

We received affirmative responses from a large portion of those people, he said.

The system did not receive responses from 53 endowments for scholarships spread across all four of the system’s institutions:

The Board of Curators is asking the court to allow the university to redesignate these 53 endowments for scholarships without donor permission.

The petition for 53 endowments for scholarships represents a small portion of the school’s overall aid, Basi said. The university will reallocate funds to award scholarships to students with high financial need or students who are the first in their families to attend college.

We know that these scholarships could certainly be used by many students to help them with their financial requirements in attending college, he said.

Nearly a year after the Supreme Court eliminated affirmative action in college admissions, it remains unclear whether Missouri needs to actually remove race and ethnicity as scholarship criteria.

The Supreme Court’s June 2023 ruling concerns the consideration of race in college admissions. However, it does not make any mention of scholarships or grants. Most states and universities have kept race-based scholarships unchanged in the wake of the ruling without consequence, though some institutions are examining race-conscious scholarships.

Ohio’s attorney general said compliance with the affirmative action ban requires ending race-conscious scholarships. Ohio colleges are assessing scholarships with race criteria as a result. The University of Kentucky has also said the ruling restricted the consideration of race in scholarships.

Basi said the University of Missouri System’s legal team conducted its own analysis of the Supreme Court’s ruling. That legal team came to the same conclusion as the attorney general.

In its petition, the University of Missouri System argues that while the Supreme Court’s ruling, most specifically concerned the admissions process, the legal framework and analysis should apply equally to a university’s award of other valuable benefits, including scholarship awards and program benefits.

The petition also notes that as a result of the state attorney general’s June 29, 2023, directive, the University of Missouri System has been unable to make new awards from the endowments for scholarships.