Unlawful Illinois DEI Scholarship Program Suspended After Justice Department Threatened Lawsuit

WASHINGTON—Today, the Justice Department announced that it has acted to end the state of Illinois’ unlawful minority-only scholarship program.  After the Justice Department threatened to file suit, the state and six universities suspended the program.

On March 31, 2025, the Justice Department found that an Illinois scholarship program unconstitutionally discriminated on the basis of race in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.  Following the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. President & Fellow of Harvard Coll., 600 U.S. 181 (2023), colleges and universities are prohibited from using race to select winners and losers in higher education. The scholarship program established by Illinois law used race as a prerequisite for participation, specifically excluding students of some races but not others in violation of federal law.

After the Justice Department notified the educational institutions of its findings, multiple universities informed the Justice Department that they had ended their participation in the program, including Northwestern University, Loyola University of Chicago, and the University of Chicago.  None of the institutions that the Department notified of its findings is currently electing to continue its participation in the program.

Additionally, the Illinois Board of Higher Education, which administers the state-created DEI scholarship program, responded to the Department’s threatened lawsuit by suspending all its activities relating to the program until it can comprehensively review the program with the Illinois General Assembly during the current legislative session.   

“This Department of Justice is committed to rooting DEI out of American institutions, including in the education system," said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. "This latest victory illustrates that the threat of legal action can be enough to force bad actors into dissolving harmful practices that disregard merit and divide Americans based on race.”

To learn more about the Civil Rights Division visit www.justice.gov/crt, and to report possible violations of federal civil rights laws go to www.civilrights.justice.gov or call toll-free at 800-253-3931.