The Gates Foundation has changed the eligibility criteria of its signature scholarship program after a right-wing activist group argued to the United States’ Internal Revenue Service, or IRS, that it was violating its tax-exempt status by discriminating against white people.
The nonprofit American Alliance for Equal Rights, or AAER, has worked to overhaul policies that address discrimination in universities — and has now set its sights on charities. On April 1, AAER filed a formal complaint to the IRS claiming that the Seattle, Washington-based Gates Foundation, as well as two smaller foundations, was violating federal anti-discrimination laws.
The complaint focused on the Gates Scholarship program, which only accepts applicants who are low-income minority students. The eligibility criteria on the scholarship’s website says that applicants must “from at least one of the following ethnicities: African-American, American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian & Pacific Islander American, and/or Hispanic American.”
About the author
Jesse Chase-Lubitz
Jesse Chase-Lubitz covers climate change and multilateral development banks for Devex. She previously worked at Nature Magazine, where she received a Pulitzer grant for an investigation into land reclamation. She has written for outlets such as Al Jazeera, Bloomberg, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, and The Japan Times, among others. Jesse holds a master’s degree in Environmental Policy and Regulation from the London School of Economics.
