Education

Twelve race-based scholarships totaling $46,000 weren’t given out at Ohio University’s E.W. Scripps School of Journalism’s awards banquet this week, said Journalism School Director Eddith Dashiell. 

And that’s only a fraction of the 130 gift agreements that represent $450,000 worth of scholarship money under review by the university after comments Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost made about race-based scholarships after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against race-conscious admissions.

“I’m disappointed that the university chose this route,” Dashiell said to the Ohio Capital Journal. “It would have been a clear, very easy way to demonstrate their true commitment to diversity and by cowardly cowering to one person’s opinion about how to interpret the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision has resulted in at least 12 of our students not getting scholarships they need.”

Ohio University’s scholarship review is ongoing, university spokesperson Dan Pittman said in an email.

“It would be premature for us to speculate on any potential outcomes, including the scope of impacted scholarships and/or gift agreements,” Pittman said.

Dr. Eddith Dashiell is director of Ohio University's School of Journalism

Dashiell said it’s misleading for a university to say the scholarships are still under review at the tail end of spring semester.

“To me, when the university says their official position is the scholarships are still under review, that is code for they haven’t been given out,” she said. “Scholarship season is over. … The decision has already been made.”

The Capital Journal reported in March that at least seven Ohio public universities — including OU — are reviewing scholarships. The other universities include Cleveland State University, Kent State University, the University of Akron, the University of Toledo, Youngstown State University and Ohio State University. Bowling Green State University is also reviewing race-based scholarships. 

Cleveland State University said the scholarships in questions remain under review and Bowling Green said it “continues to evaluate next steps.” The rest of the universities did not respond by the Capital Journal’s deadline.

Dave Yost’s remarks 

The day after the Supreme Court decision, Yost sent a letter to Ohio colleges and universities saying his office won’t legally protect someone at a college or university who uses race as a factor. 

Race-based scholarships came up on a January call Yost had with universities — even though scholarships were not mentioned in the Supreme Court decision. 

“What was said in response to a question was after the recent Supreme Court decision, scholarships will need to be looked at to ensure compliance with the law,” Yost’s spokesperson Bethany McCorkle said in a Febuary email. “… Race-based scholarships discriminate on the basis of race in awarding benefits. Therefore, it would follow that such programs are unconstitutional.”

Not long after that phone call, university faculty and staff across the state got wind that diversity scholarships were under review. 

“A public institution of higher education is … supposed to follow the law,” Dashiell said. “(OU is) following one man’s opinion of what the law is.”

12 missing scholarships

Dashiell compared this year’s list of journalism scholarships to last year’s list and noticed 12 scholarships were missing.

“They aren’t there,” she said. “That’s more than under review. They made a decision. They deleted them.”

OU’s journalism school is made up of 84% white students, Dashiell said.

“The diversity scholarships weren’t created to keep white students from getting any money,” she said. “They were designed to help encourage African American students to come to a little bitty town called Athens, Ohio. … To say that these 12 scholarships somehow according to the Ohio Attorney General’s Office, somehow that these scholarships discriminate against whites, is so blatantly racist, I don’t even know how to explain that.”

Dashiell apologized to the donors whose scholarships weren’t awarded in her speech during Tuesday’s awards banquet. 

“On behalf of the E. W. Scripps School of Journalism: To our donors, please accept our deepest apology for our inability to share your generosity with our students for next academic year,” she said. 

Some of the donors whose scholarships weren’t awarded include Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and columnist Clarence Page and former Washington Post ombudsman Andrew Alexander. 

Dashiell is worried how else the Supreme Court decision is going to be interpreted. 

“If it’s diversity scholarships this year, what are they going to pause next year?” she asked. How are they going to stretch the U.S. Supreme Court decision again?”

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This story is provided by Ohio Capital Journal, a part of States Newsroom, a national 501(c)(3) nonprofit. See the original story here.