Minority scholarships under fire

By Brent VonCannon
The Collegian

All Caucasian students out there feeling underprivileged and neglected due to their race can take heart — help may be on the way in the form of a scholarship. At least, that’s the direction student groups at two colleges on the East coast have taken.

In recent years, college Republican groups at Boston University and Roger Williams University in Bristol, Rhode Island have implemented highly controversial plans to set up “white” scholarships as a parody to target what they consider to be blatant race-based discrimination that already exists in the form of minority scholarships.

The Caucasian scholarships are, in fact, real, and were funded by the respective Republican campus clubs. They are not sponsored by the universities or supported by any state or national Republican organizations.

At Boston University, requirements for the $250 scholarship included being at least a quarter Caucasian, and writing some essays describing the applicant’s ancestry and “what it means to be a Caucasian-American today.” The deadline was at the end of November.

Members of the Boston University College Republicans say the scholarship is primarily a tool to raise awareness of what they claim are racially charged programs that promote bigotry and inequality.

“If you give out a white scholarship, it’s racist, and if you give out a Hispanic scholarship, it is OK,” Joe Mroszczyk, president of the Boston University College Republicans, said to various media. “It is the main point. We are not doing this scholarship as a white-supremacy scholarship.”

Race-based scholarships have plenty of supporters, however. Sara-Marie Pons, who serves on the Admissions Student Diversity Board at Boston University, was quoted in the Daily Free Press as saying that past policies that kept minority groups behind justify today’s affirmative action programs.

“The goal of a university in striving to admit more students of color is a positive movement to increase the diversity of its institution,” Pons said. Pons claimed that diversity helps provide a better learning environment and college experience.

Roger Williams University’s College Republicans started the ordeal back in 2003. The intent was the same, to “expose the inequities” in the system, Jason Mattera, former president of the Roger Williams University College Republicans, said in the Daily Free Press. Mattera is Puerto Rican and would have qualified for some of the scholarships he attacked.

Fifteen students applied for the Roger Williams University Caucasian scholarship, and the winner was awarded in a public ceremony, despite protests. The scholarship was discontinued after that year.

As it stands, many public colleges and universities look at a variety of factors, including ethnicity and sex, as well as more traditional criteria like students’ grades and test scores, when determining admissions. In California, racial preferences in public college decision-making are prohibited due to Proposition 209. This includes school-based scholarships.

“We want to be very fair to all students and not exclusive to any,” said Paul DeRuosi, Program Director of University Scholarships and Student Affairs Development. “Scholarships are open to all CSU students enrolled at Fresno State, and are based on things like academic achievement, major, and need.”

DeRuosi added that different private donors through the university have different criteria for awarding scholarships, but none are based on race. Race-based scholarships are still available for California students through many private organizations. Recent Supreme Court decisions have limited the reach of affirmative action-based scholarships sponsored by public institutions, however.

The idea of awarding scholarships in an attempt to increase college enrollment of historically underrepresented groups such as Hispanics and African-Americans picked up steam during the 1960s, particularly with increased federal attention and aid to public education. State university systems soon followed suit with their own programs.

Betsy Swift, Academic Support Coordinator at the Department of Chicano and Latin American Studies, said she had no problem with scholarships for either ethnic minorities or Caucasians.

“People contribute money to scholarships for that purpose,” Swift said of minority scholarships. “But if some people want to set up a scholarship for Caucasian students, that’s their prerogative.”

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