Arkansas lawsuit seeks to end discrimination for scholarship based on racial discrimination

A lawsuit against the Arkansas Minority Health Commission seeks to end discrimination on scholarship decisions which currently exclude White and Arab American applicants. 

“Today Do No Harm is asking the court for a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction to immediately stop the Arkansas Minority Health Commission from making scholarship decisions based on the race requirement that excludes white and Arab students,” Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, Board Chair of Do No Harm told Fox News Digital.

“The AMHC is illegally excluding and discriminating against certain students and denying them opportunities based on their race in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.”

Do No Harm, an organization working to address discriminatory practices in healthcare, filed the lawsuit on behalf of a member against Kenya L. Eddings, the executive director of the Arkansas Minority Health Commission, earlier this month. 

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The suit asserts that the Minority Healthcare Workforce Diversity Scholarship discriminates against students based on skin color, mainly against White and Arab American students. 

The scholarship’s eligibility criteria state that a candidate must confirm they are a “racial minority,” which includes African American, Hispanic, Native American/American Indian, Asian American or Marshallese. 

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Do No Harm filed for an injunction this week to prevent the group from awarding any scholarships while the lawsuit remains ongoing, which the judge will examine by mid-May to determine whether he will approve and immediately cease the scholarship’s operations. 

“Do No Harm asked the court for a preliminary injunction to immediately stop the Arkansas Minority Health Commission from making scholarship decisions based on the race requirement that excludes white and Arab students,” said Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, Board Chair of Do No Harm. “The Court issued an expedited schedule and will hold a hearing in mid-May to decide whether to grant Do No Harm’s request to immediately stop the AMHC’s unconstitutional scholarship program.”

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The lawsuit lists Member A, the plaintiff, as satisfying all criteria the scholarship requests, aside from the racial component, meaning she has financial need and requires help to pursue her degree for pre-nursing and further health-related education and career. 

The group claims that the scholarship violates the 14th Amendment, which forbids a state from making or enforcing “any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States” and depriving “any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

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The lawsuit specifically aims to address the Equal Protection Clause, claiming that it requires “racial classifications to satisfy strict scrutiny” and that the scholarship’s “gross racial exclusion obviously fails to meet those standards.”