by Brandon Poulter
The American Medical Association (AMA) Foundation is offering students at least two scholarships on the basis of race, according to its website.
One of the scholarships is for black, Hispanic, Native Hawaiian and native Alaskan medical students, and the other is for black students only, according to its website. Similar scholarships have come under fire from conservative legal organizations, and one legal scholar said that scholarships selective on the basis of race may violate the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
One scholarship is titled “AMA Foundation Underrepresented in Medicine Physicians of Tomorrow Scholarship,” which requires applicants to be “African American/Black, Latine/Hispanic or American Indian/Native Hawaiians/Alaska Native,” according to its website. The other scholarship, titled “Dr. Richard Allen Williams & Genita Evangelista Johnson/Association of Black Cardiologists Scholarship,” requires applicants to be “African American/Black” medical students who are interested in cardiology.
The AMA Foundation Underrepresented in Medicine Physicians of Tomorrow Scholarship offers $10,000 in tuition assistance to medical students close to their final year of schooling, according to the website. The Dr. Richard Allen Williams & Genita Evangelista Johnson/Association of Black Cardiologists Scholarship offers $5,000 in tuition assistance for black students seeking to be cardiologists.
Applications for both scholarships opened Oct. 2, and will close on Jan. 17, according to the website.
The AMA Foundation also offers a “DREAM MD Equity Scholarship” for medical student beneficiaries of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which shielded some illegal migrants from deportation if they arrived as children, or first-generation immigrants to the U.S. who demonstrate “public advocacy for the equitable treatment of immigrants,” according to their website.
Scholarships restricted on the basis of race have come under fire from conservative legal organizations. The Legal Insurrection Foundation’s Equal Protection Project (EPP) filed a complaint against two fellowships in September offered by Western Kentucky University specifically targeted by race.
The Supreme Court ruled against race-based college admissions in June and said the practice violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
The AMA voted to increase its support for sex-change medical interventions for children with gender identity issues in a resolution its House of Delegates approved in June. The new resolution makes the AMA more active in its response to state-level restriction and calls for lobbying for laws that will promote sex-change procedures.
The American Medical Association did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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Brandon Poulter is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
