On January 21, President Trump issued an executive order calling for the disbandment of all federal diversity, equity, and inclusion-related programs. In the wake of his decision, several universities and private organizations have taken similar action to remove DEI-related initiatives at their institutions. Now, the Gates Foundation is the latest organization to follow suit and has eliminated race as an eligibility requirement for the Gates Scholarship.
In 2017, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched the Gates Scholarship program to financially support low-income students from underrepresented racial backgrounds in their pursuit of higher education. To qualify for a Gates Scholarship – prior to the recent eligibility updates – students had to be a high school senior with a GPA over 3.3, Pell Grant-eligible, a U.S. citizen, and come from one of the following ethnic backgrounds: African American, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian and Pacific Islander American, or Hispanic American. Additionally, students had to plan to enroll full-time in a four-year program at a U.S. accredited college or university.
However, the foundation recently released the following statement:
“The Gates Foundation’s mission is to create a world where every person has the opportunity to live a healthy and productive life. We take our compliance obligations seriously to ensure we can operate in service of this mission. In September 2024, we began evaluating our Gates Scholarship program to ensure the program was reaching the broadest range of low-income students. It has been decided to expand eligibility to all Pell Grant-eligible students in order to achieve this goal. In the future, Gates Scholarship recipients will be selected through the expanded eligibility criteria.”
Typical capitulation by privileged white capitalists. Highly insulted as an AA Cornell University graduate (C’82) who achieved my academic credentials, in addition to my intelligence, because, it’s a well established fact that people of ALL colors, but especially AAs, enslaved by whites, have been disproportionately discriminated against since being brought to America, yes on slave ships long before Columbus (Albeit, white Americans still cannot begin to process Project 1619 or any human trafficking before or after.). WE as a people DO DESERVE not only reparations (Don’t think we’ll ever forget Black Wall Street) and so much more until, if it will ever be possible with the current LUNATIC for a president, the playing field(s) have been leveled.