The University of Miami's "U Dreamers Program," which offers scholarships to undocumented immigrant students under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), has come under scrutiny by a federal investigation. This initiative to assist DACA recipients has been identified as potentially discriminatory against U.S. citizens in a probe launched by the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights. The investigation, reported by Miami New Times, is part of a broader effort that also targets four other universities across the nation.
Alongside the University of Miami, institutions including the University of Louisville, the University of Nebraska Omaha, the University of Michigan, and Western Michigan University are also being investigated. These schools are accused of excluding American-born students from competing for certain scholarships and are caught up in the United States Department of Education's move to increasingly enforce policies that are intended to, very simply, put America first. As part of these efforts, the Department has been initiating probes based on complaints filed by organizations like the Equal Protection Project (EPP), according to the Florida Phoenix, as reported by WUWF.
The EPP, a branch of the Legal Insurrection Foundation, has been quite vocal about the matter. In a statement obtained by the Florida Phoenix, William A. Jacobson, founder of the EPP, addressed the intentions behind the complaints filed. "Protecting equal access to education includes protecting the rights of American-born students. At the Equal Protection Project, we are gratified that the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights is acting on our complaints regarding scholarships that excluded American-born students. Discrimination against American-born students must not be tolerated," stated Jacobson, as detailed by WUWF.
Representing the DOE, Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor emphasized the alignment of the investigation with President Trump's "America First" doctrine. "Neither the Trump Administration's America first policies nor the Civil Rights Act of 1964's prohibition on national origin discrimination permit universities to deny our fellow citizens the opportunity to compete for scholarships because they were born in the United States," he said in the statement, as captured in a WUWF article.
