Columbia University is trying to adjust some of the restrictions for a fellowship they have offered since 1920, most notably they are trying to remove the provision that requires applicants be white.
The Lydia C. Roberts graduate and traveling fellowship has a few unusual requirements in addition to the whites-only provision, including that candidates need to be from Iowa and return there for at least two years after graduating.
Columbia's associate provost, Lucy Drotning, filed an affidavit in Manhattan Supreme Court in order to change the fellowship to fit the times, according to the New York Daily News.
The court filing says that "circumstances have so changed from the time when the Trust was established" that compliance is "impossible," according to the New York Daily News.
The filing went on to add, "Columbia University is now prohibited by law and University policy from discriminating on the basis of race."
The scholarship was set up by Lydia C. Chamberlain just before her death in 1920. The Des Moines native who lived in New York City toward the end of her life also put restrictions on what the lucky white Iowan who received the scholarship could study. According to the New York Daily News, the recipient of the scholarship was forbidden from studying law, theology, veterinary surgery, medicine or dentistry.
The fellowship, which hasn't been granted since 1997 for reasons that were not revealed by the university, has had its whites-only clause challenged before. In 1949, the NAACP complained about the clause. Columbia's provost at the time defended the clause.
"We do not feel that we are justified in depriving some of our students of the benefits of restricted grants simply because they are not available to everyone," Grayson L. Kirk said.
When the fellowship was first awarded in 1920 it was for the $750, which would easily cover Columbia's modest $180 tuition of the time, according to the New York Post.
