Dive Brief:
- The U.S. Department of Education plans to propose regulations stripping out the race-based eligibility criteria for the Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program, ending a legal challenge against the federal grant program.
- The McNair Program is a popular grant program that aims to increase the number of Ph.D. graduates from low-income or underrepresented backgrounds. It gave out over $60 million via colleges in the fiscal year 2024.
- Students and conservative groups had sued over the program’s race-based eligibility requirements, arguing they’re unconstitutional. Those groups agreed this week to voluntarily drop their lawsuit because of the Education Department’s plans to rescind that criteria, according to court documents.
Dive Insight:
The Education Department’s plans to overhaul the eligibility criteria for the program mark the latest move by the Trump administration to stamp out race-based scholarships and programs in higher education.
In December, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a legal memo declaring that several of the Education Department’s grant programs for underrepresented students and minority-serving institutions were unconstitutional because of their racial or ethnic criteria.
However, the memo concluded that the Education Department could continue some of the programs under racially neutral criteria, including the McNair program.
The Education Department confirmed in a statement Wednesday that it planned to change the eligibility criteria for the program via rulemaking, though it did not share information about the timing.
“Consistent with the Department of Justice opinion, the Department of Education has agreed not to implement the racially discriminatory aspects of the McNair program, and we plan to make corresponding changes to our regulations,” Ellen Keast, press secretary for higher education, said in an emailed statement.
The grant program is named after Ronald McNair, a Black astronaut and physicist who died in the Challenger explosion in 1986. It’s open to those from underrepresented backgrounds, as well as first-generation, low-income students of any race.
The McNair program came under fire in August 2024, when Young America’s Foundation sued the Education Department over the program. The conservative activist group — along with its chapter affiliate and two students — argued that the race-based eligibility criteria violated the Constitution’s equal protection clause.
A district court judge dismissed the lawsuit in December 2024, ruling that the plaintiffs didn’t have standing to sue. Last year, the conservative groups and the students appealed their case to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where the case was pending until they agreed to drop the lawsuit this week.
The Trump administration has been reshaping other federal grant programs. In September, the agency canceled $350 million in grants for minority-serving institutions — a move that sparked outcry among college leaders who say their campuses would be harmed without these funding streams.
The Justice Department has also declined to defend a decades-long grant program for Hispanic-serving institutions from a legal challenge spearheaded by the state of Tennessee and Students for Fair Admissions, the same group that successfully mounted a legal challenge to end race-conscious admissions in 2023.
A federal judge has allowed the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities and LatinoJustice PRLDEF, a civil rights organization, to intervene in the case and defend the federal grant program.
