Florida State University is now under a federal civil rights investigation over scholarship programs that critics say favor students by race or sex. The Trump administration’s Education Department has opened the Florida State University probe after receiving a complaint that challenged 32 scholarships at the Tallahassee campus.
According to a Department of Education letter dated Aug. 4 and obtained by Fox News Digital, the Office for Civil Rights will look at whether FSU discriminated on the basis of race, color or national origin in violation of Title VI, and whether it discriminated on the basis of sex in violation of Title IX. The university, which receives federal financial assistance, is required to comply with those laws. The complaint that triggered the case was filed in July 2025 by the Equal Protection Project, a group founded by Cornell Law professor William Jacobson.
Jacobson said Florida State stood out even among the many schools his group has challenged. He said the university has one of the largest collections of what he described as discriminatory scholarships his organization has seen. Jacobson said his group has taken on more than 290 colleges and universities, and only a small number have drawn that many challenged programs. He also said the findings were striking because Florida has taken aggressive action against diversity, equity and inclusion programs in higher education.
The complaint breaks the 32 scholarships into three categories: 14 that it says discriminate based on race, color or national origin, 13 based on sex, and five based on both. Among the awards cited is the Crockett Family Fund for Excellence, which the complaint says listed any student as eligible to apply while noting a donor preference for an African American or Black recipient. Another, the Crossman Career Builders Scholarship, allegedly showed a preference for a female recipient who is Black or African American, Hispanic or a member of the Seminole Tribe. The complaint also points to the Disciples of the Diamond Spring 81 Scholarship, which it says expressed an additional preference for an African American male, and the Dynamic African American Women in Engineering Powerhouse Scholarship, which reportedly favored an African American female student. A separate award, the College of Arts and Sciences Student Travel Awards, was cited for expressing a preference for a female recipient.
