The University of California, San Diego (UCSD) has ended its race-exclusive scholarship after a lawsuit challenged it under the Ku Klux Klan Act, marking a major legal victory for equal treatment in education.
The university’s Black Alumni Scholarship Fund—once limited to black students—was quietly renamed the Goins Alumni Scholarship Fund and opened to students of all races after the Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) sued UCSD in July. The lawsuit alleged the school violated the Ku Klux Klan Act, a 19th-century law that forbids conspiracies to deprive citizens of their civil rights.
“This victory proves that the Constitution’s promise of equality before the law still has teeth,” said Jack Brown, an attorney for PLF. “The Ku Klux Klan Act was written to stop government actors from conspiring with private parties to discriminate—and that’s exactly what happened here. When faced with the law, UC San Diego had no choice but to retreat.”
Rather than risk defeat in court, UCSD dropped its race-based eligibility rule after transferring the program to a private nonprofit in an attempt to skirt California’s ban on racial preferences. PLF withdrew its lawsuit on Monday after confirming the changes.
Legal experts say this outcome could set a national precedent. “In principle, [the Ku Klux Klan Act] could apply to any racial discrimination by a nonprofit that is so intertwined with a university that it essentially serves a government function,” said PLF attorney Haley Dutch.
