IL strips explicit racial criteria from minority teacher scholarship program

By Jonathan Bilyk | Legal Newsline
The Center Square

Rather than attempt to defend a longstanding state-funded scholarship program against claims in court that it intentionally discriminated against white applicants, the state of Illinois has rewritten the law to end explicit racial preferences in the program altogether.

Just before the Thanksgiving Day holiday, Gov. JB Pritzker quietly signed into law House Bill 3065, which changed the state law that governs the state’s so-called Minority Teachers of Illinois Scholarship Program.

Pritzker did not make a statement concerning the law.

HB3065 was introduced in late October in the Illinois General Assembly during the state legislature’s fall veto session. It was quickly passed.

The law took effect immediately.

The passage of the law will end a legal challenge pending in Springfield federal court challenging the Minority Teachers program for unconstitutionally favoring people based on race in the name of “diversifying” the ranks of public school teachers in Illinois.

Those who brought the challenge declared victory in the days after Pritzker signed the new law.

“Illinois cannot disqualify students from competing for a taxpayer-funded college scholarship because of their race,” said attorney Samantha Romero-Drew, of the nonprofit constitutional legal advocacy organization, the Pacific Legal Foundation. “Race-based discrimination is a blatant violation of the Equal Protection Clause.”

The Pacific Legal Foundation had represented plaintiffs the American Alliance for Equal Rights in the legal action seeking to either force changes in the state’s teacher diversification scholarship program, or shut it down.

The lawsuit was among several the Alliance for Equal Rights has launched taking aim against a host of such programs nationwide. In those lawsuits, the organization has argued the U.S. Constitution and recent rulings from the U.S. Supreme Court should no longer allow government agencies and employers to use programs, whether decades old and among those recently established under the rubric of “diversity, equity and inclusion” (DEI) to discriminate against white students and prospective employees in the name of “diversity.”

The Illinois lawsuit similarly asserted the state minority scholarship program violated the constitutional rights of primarily white potential applicants, by explicitly limiting inclusion in the program solely to “’minority students’ … classified as: American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, or Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander.”

The program was established under Illinois law in 1992, and is funded annually by the state.

According to a description of the program posted on the Illinois Office of Management and Budget site, the Minority Teachers of Illinois Scholarship Program exists “to help diversify the teaching pool and provide a supply of well-qualified and diverse teachers for hard-to-staff schools.”

The OMB, with the Illinois Student Assistance Commission, further said the program was designed “with a goal of narrowing the achievement gap associated with race, based in part on theories that minority children may perform better if some of their teachers are members of racial/ethnic minority groups.”

Scholarship recipients participating in the program must also be a U.S. citizen or permanent legal resident in Illinois; be enrolled in a college or university in Illinois, studying to become a licensed teacher; and must have a 2.5 grade point average or better, among other requirements.

Those selected to participate in the program are eligible to receive up to $7,500 per year toward their college education.

Those participating in the program are then contractually obligated to work in an Illinois preschool, elementary school or high school, where “no less than 30 percent of the students are minority students.”

According to the lawsuit, the American Alliance for Equal Rights had at least one member of its organization – named in the complaint as a female student identified solely as “Member A” – who wished to apply for a scholarship through the program, but cannot, solely on the basis of her race.

While acknowledging Illinois suffers from a teacher shortage, the American Alliance for Equal Rights said the racial exclusions included in the 32-year-old scholarship program was a constitutionally impermissible solution.

“Such blatant race-based discrimination against individuals who could otherwise contribute to a robust teacher pipeline in Illinois serves no compelling government purpose. It is demeaning, patronizing, un-American, and unconstitutional,” the Alliance said in its lawsuit.

With the program now changed under the new state law, PLF said its lawsuit is now moot.

The sudden change in the law came abruptly.

To that point, the state had indicated it intended to defend the program in court.

As recently as September, attorneys from the Illinois Attorney General’s office had filed a response admitting race was used to determine who could qualify for the scholarship program, while simultaneously denying the allegations in the AAER and PLF lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the program and underlying state law.

“Defendants admit that government classifications on the basis of race may violate the Equal Protection Clause unless they are narrowly tailored to a compelling government interest, but deny that any violation of the Equal Protection Clause has occurred…,” the Attorney General’s office wrote in an answer to the complaint.

Under the changes to the law, Illinois removes racial preferences for applicants. Instead, the state will supply funding to boost the numbers of public school teachers, particularly in underserved communities.

PLF said it and the AAER share those goals and they applauded the state for reversing course and choosing a different path.

“By signing House Bill 3065, Illinois chose a more dignified principle: scholarships may support future teachers to serve in communities of need, but the state will no longer exclude applicants through racial categorization,” the PLF said.

“Illinois can now pursue its goal of recruiting talented educators by expanding opportunity, not restricting it.”