Pepperdine University Stands Firm in Support of Race-Based Scholarships

Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, has a conservative political reputation together with strong religious affiliations. So it comes as a surprise that Pepperdine, unlike many other private universities, has refused to knuckle under to right-wing litigating groups that have demanded that the university end its race-based scholarship program.

In 1991 Daniel J. Podberesky, who was of Hispanic origin, sued the University of Maryland claiming that he was denied a scholarship because he was not black. Each year, the University of Maryland offered 30 to 40 black students a Benjamin Banneker scholarship which was available only to African Americans. After a series of court cases the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the scholarships were an illegal form of race discrimination. In 1995 the Supreme Court refused to revisit the decision. This ruling had the effect of validating the appeals court decision as law within the Fourth Circuit. Most state-operated colleges and universities across the United States determined that they now were obliged to abandon their race-based scholarship programs.

In 2003 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Gratz case that the University of Michigan’s admissions program that gave a distinct advantage to black applicants was unconstitutional. This ruling emboldened conservative interest groups to make another assault on race-based scholarships at private colleges and universities, almost all of which receive federal funding. The American Civil Rights Institute and the Center for Equal Opportunity sent letters to a large number of private colleges and universities challenging their race-based scholarships, black-only orientation programs, and other efforts that were race specific. The letters threatened litigation if the universities did not open up their black-only programs to other groups.

In view of the state of litigation and political pressures, many private educational institutions opened their scholarship programs to all minority students. Other schools converted their orientation, outreach, and financial aid programs to help students of all races who came from low-income families. Other institutions craftily offered scholarships to students of any race that graduated from high schools that were almost exclusively black.

Race-based scholarship programs at hundreds of colleges and universities were altered so that there would be no possibility of litigation. Princeton, Washington University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were among the universities that received the letters from right-wing litigators. All three universities decided it was prudent to alter their race-specific programs.

Pepperdine University in Malibu, California, also received a letter from the two conservative groups demanding the university open its Richard Eamer Scholars Program to all students, not just underrepresented minorities. At the time the Richard Eamer Scholars Program at Pepperdine gave no more than $1,000 to undergraduate minority students. In 2003 the total scholarship funds awarded under the program amounted to $47,219, only 0.2 percent of all the financial aid given by the university to undergraduate students.

But when confronted with the ultimatum to change its race-based scholarship program or face litigation, Pepperdine refused to budge. It decided to keep the Richard Eamer program in place.

Pepperdine University is an independent, medium-size university enrolling approximately 8,300 students in five colleges and schools. The university was founded in 1937 by George Pepperdine, a Christian businessman who founded the Western Auto Supply Company. Pepperdine University continues to be religiously affiliated with the Church of Christ. The university’s mission statement reads, “It is the purpose of Pepperdine University to pursue the very highest academic standards within a context that celebrates and extends the spiritual and ethical ideals of the Christian faith.”

Due to its religious affiliation and other factors Pepperdine has a reputation as a bastion of conservative thought. The university’s law school is headed by Ken Starr, the former solicitor general of the United States and the special prosecutor who was in charge of the investigations that led to the impeachment of President Clinton. Another leading figure at the university is the highly regarded conservative scholar James Q. Wilson.

Most observers were surprised that this conservative university was the one institution that stood firm in defense of race-based scholarships. “We are concerned about ethnic diversity, not necessarily because it’s politically correct, but because it’s the right thing to do,” W. David Baird, then-dean of Pepperdine’s undergraduate college, told the Los Angeles Times. “We’re called to it as a consequence of our Christian commitment.”

Pepperdine president Andrew K. Benton is considered something of a maverick. In 2008 he took a 2,400-mile tour of historic Route 66 to find out what people along “America’s Main Street” were thinking about on the key issues of the day. In the fall of 2008 Dr. Benton made headlines by stating that the university was not in support of a ballot initiative that would ban gay marriage in California.

Pepperdine Refuses to Budge

When Pepperdine refused to end or alter its Richard Eamer scholarships, the two conservative groups filed a formal complaint against Pepperdine with the Office for Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education. The complaint alleges that Pepperdine is in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The complaint demands that the Education Department force Pepperdine to open the scholarship program to students of all races or risk losing its federal financial support.

Remarkably, six years later, the complaint is still under consideration at the U.S. Department of Education. University officials confirmed to JBHE that the Richard Eamer program was still in place but declined to comment further due to the ongoing investigation by the Education Department. But W. David Baird, now dean emeritus at Pepperdine, told JBHE, “I am proud the university held firm. History will judge that we made the right decision.”