Exclusive | Harvard hit with fed complaint over ‘race-restricted’ scholarship

Harvard University on Sunday was slapped with a federal complaint over a “race-restricted” scholarship program that is limited to students of color, The Post has learned.

The complaint faults the Ivy League institution for actively promoting and supporting the Union Scholars summer scholarship program, which is designated for “students of color” and gives 10 applicants a $4,800 stipend and $6,000 need-based assistance.

“What doesn’t Harvard understand about not discriminating based on race?” said William Jacobson, president and founder of the Equal Protection Project, a legal watchdog that filed the complaint, to The Post.

“The US Supreme Court told Harvard to stop; now it’s up to the Department of Justice to make Harvard stop,” said Jacobson, an alum of Harvard.

Harvard was at the center of a landmark case in 2023 when the US Supreme Court determined that affirmative-action programs for admission are unconstitutional.

The Equal Protection Project filed its complaint about racism in the scholarship program with the Justice Department’s Division of Civil Rights.

The complaint comes against the backdrop of a broader Trump administration effort to pressure Harvard to scrap its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies, be more inclusive to conservatives and stamp out antisemitism on campus.

“The Harvard Union Scholars Program provides very valuable benefits to students, and it should be open without regard to race,” Jacobson said.

Technically, the Union Scholars program is administered by the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, or AFSCME, but the complaint contends that Harvard actively supports it.

“Harvard isn’t a bystander; it hosts the orientation, provides support, and promotes the program,” added Robert Fox, a lawyer for the Equal Protection Project.

“By putting its name on a race-restricted opportunity, Harvard is engaging in unlawful discrimination.”
AFSCME, the largest public sector trade union in the country, created the Union Scholars Program in 2003 in conjunction with Harvard Law School’s Center for Labor and a Just Economy.

Students in the program are expected to partake in a six-week “field placement on a union organizing campaign.”

On one webpage describing the effort, AFSCME calls it “a summer internship program for students of color passionate about social justice and workers’ rights.”

But The Equal Protection Project’s 11-page complaint insists, “The Union Scholars Program is explicitly race-restricted.

“Its eligibility requirements state that applicants must ‘[b]e a college student of a historically marginalized community.’ The phrase ‘historically marginalized community’ is often used as an alternative to ‘underrepresented minority.’ ”

Applications for next year’s program are still under way, with a Feb. 28, 2026, deadline.

The Equal Protection Project, which targets discrimination in higher education, pointed to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which restricts institutions of higher education that deliberately discriminate on the basis of race from getting federal funds.

The watchdog is calling on Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon and her team to probe whether Harvard’s involvement in the Union Scholars Program is a Title XI violation.

“Considering that Harvard litigated the issue of race-based admissions all the way to the Supreme Court and lost, prompt and aggressive DOJ action is warranted,” the complaint added.

Trump has threatened to cut off billions of dollars for research and other purposes from the elite school over its refusal to acquiesce to his demands to scrap its DEI and race-based policies.

A Boston-based federal judge handed the school a massive victory in September after concluding the threats were illegal.

Other elite schools such as Columbia University have reached a deal with the Trump administration over its demands.

Neither Harvard nor the AFSCME responded to Post requests for comment.

“I am a Harvard Law School graduate,” Jacobson said. “I fully understand the arrogance and self-righteousness of the university.

“But enough is enough when it comes to the use of race in admissions, whether to the university or to its programs.”