The Department of Health and Human Services was sued on Monday over a scholarship reserved for "Native Hawaiian" students, one of the few race-based programs that has survived the Trump administration’s crackdown on racial preferences.
The Native Hawaiian Health Scholarship Program, which was soliciting applications as recently as March 15, provides financial aid to Native Hawaiian medical students who agree to practice medicine in Hawaii after graduation. Awardees receive tuition, a monthly stipend, and additional funds to cover books and supplies.
Filed in federal court by Do No Harm, a group that opposes identity politics in medicine, the lawsuit argues that the program’s eligibility criteria violate the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. It underscores the tenacity of diversity programs even one year into the Trump administration, which axed a host of similar initiatives across the federal government.
"In the last year, the Department of Health and Human Services has made historic strides toward ending racial bias in medicine and restoring meritocracy," said Stanley Goldfarb, the chairman of Do No Harm and the father of Washington Free Beacon chairman Michael Goldfarb. "That this program still exists even after the efforts by this administration to course correct proves just how widespread institutional race discrimination has become."
The Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Trump administration has tended to settle complaints against the programs of the Biden administration, using the terms of the settlement to effect changes in policy. Last week, for example, the Justice Department settled a lawsuit challenging the Biden administration’s alleged jawboning of social media companies. The settlement, filed in federal court in Louisiana, bars three government agencies from pressuring tech platforms to censor speech.
HHS could do something similar with the Do No Harm lawsuit, which names both the agency and HHS secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as defendants.
"There is no valid reason to make federal scholarships turn on race or ethnicity," the lawsuit reads. "This Court should declare that the Program’s racial requirements are unconstitutional."
