Iowa Supreme Court Blocks UI Race Scholarship Rewrite

The Iowa Supreme Court is holding the University of Iowa accountable to a donor's original wishes. The court rejected the university's attempt to rewrite a race-based scholarship, ruling that administrators cannot simply change the rules to sidestep recent legal precedents while keeping the funds.

Honoring the Donor's Original Intent

Ezra Totton, a late Black chemistry professor at the University of Iowa, died in 1996. His will directed that 40% of his estate support his top five favorite charities in equal shares. This included the University of Iowa, where he established the Ezra L. Totton Scholarship.

Totton specifically requested that the funds benefit Black students majoring in physical sciences, preferably chemistry. He created the endowment out of gratitude to the university for educating him in its graduate chemistry program during the Jim Crow era.

Post-SCOTUS Panic at the University

The university's push to revise the scholarship stems from the U.S. Supreme Court's 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College. That landmark ruling ended race-conscious admissions at colleges and universities nationwide.

University leaders said the ban raised serious doubts about its ability to administer the scholarship going forward, interpreting the ruling to apply to scholarships and grants as well. The university wanted to change the eligibility requirements to target first-generation students, who make up 19% of the student body, compared to Black students who make up just 3%.

Civil Rights Groups Push Back

The ACLU of Iowa and the NAACP strongly opposed the university's requested modification. Rita Bettis Austen, legal director of the ACLU of Iowa, argued that Black students qualify for financial aid more frequently and carry more student loan debt compared to first-generation students.

Without question, repurposing Dr. Totton's gift to students who were the first person in their family to attend college would have had the effect of significantly diluting its potential benefit to Black students,

Bettis Austen noted. The groups argued that if the university refuses to honor the original intent, it should allocate the funds to other alternative charitable institutions named in Totton's will or return the money to his family.

AG Stands Against Unconstitutional Restrictions

Iowa's attorney general and solicitor general also weighed in, but with a different legal stance. They argued that state law allows the university to modify a charitable fund when a restriction becomes unlawful, impracticable, or impossible to fulfill.

The Totton Scholarship's race-based eligibility is unconstitutional and thus impracticable to administer, given the ongoing risk of litigation and federal enforcement action,

they told the court in March. This aligns with the conservative principle that race-based distinctions in public institutions violate equal protection under the law.

Supreme Court Prioritizes the Rule of Law

The Iowa Supreme Court agreed that the original restriction has become impracticable, if not outright illegal, following the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling. However, the justices strenuously opposed the university's specific requested modification.

The court emphasized that the university cannot just rewrite the scholarship to fit modern administrative preferences. The case will now return to the district court. The higher court ordered the school to consider Totton's will and honor it, requiring the inclusion of an advocate for the donor's intent in future proceedings.

This ruling ensures that the University of Iowa cannot use a Supreme Court decision as an excuse to redirect funds away from their intended purpose. It reinforces the importance of donor intent and sends a clear message to institutions that they must respect the legal boundaries of charitable gifts.