University of Missouri System Removes Race as a Factor for Scholarships Following Supreme Court Ruling

The University of Missouri System announced June 29 it will end the use of race and ethnicity as a factor for scholarships.

The decision came the same day that the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority struck down the consideration of race in college admissions, writing that race-conscious admissions violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

“As allowed by prior law, a small number of our programs and scholarships have used race/ethnicity as a factor for admissions and scholarships,” a statement from the University of Missouri System reads. “Those practices will be discontinued, and we will abide by the new Supreme Court ruling concerning legal standards that applies to race-based admissions and race-based scholarships.”

Republican Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey wrote in a June 29 letter that schools must implement the Supreme Court’s decision “immediately” and said the ruling on admissions also applied to scholarships and other areas.

“All Missouri programs that make admitting decisions by disfavoring individuals based on race — not just college admissions, but also scholarships, employment, law reviews, etc. — must immediately adopt race-blind standards,” Bailey wrote.

The University of Missouri System’s schools “will honor our financial aid commitments that have already been awarded to our returning and incoming students,” according to the statement.

“These awards were lawfully issued under previous Supreme Court and U.S. Department of Education interpretations,” the statement reads.

Financial aid experts have warned in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision that racial college access gaps continue to exist.

Justin Draeger, president of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA), said in a statement on the Supreme Court ruling that the NASFAA will “work with member institutions to ensure we understand these legal ramifications and how they will impact financial aid policies and practices now and in the future.”

“The Supreme Court has now ruled on the matter, and we must all respect and uphold the law of the land,” Draeger said in a June 29 release. “However, we cannot ignore the fact that racial and ethnic gaps in college access and attainment persist, and these disparities must be addressed, even within this new legal framework.”

In her dissenting opinion, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that striking down affirmative action “creates serious equal protection problems.”

“At bottom, without any new factual or legal justification, the court overrides its longstanding holding that diversity in higher education is of compelling value,” Sotomayor wrote.

Roughly 6.4% of scholarship money allotted annually by the University of Missouri includes scholarships that consider race, according to The Maneater student paper.

The Maneater’s editorial board condemned the ruling in a July 3 article, writing that the “Supreme Court rulings, as well as the Attorney General’s ban threaten equal and affordable access to education, as well as diversity on campus.”