Tuesday, October 24, 2017

In Nearby Berkeley-lite

I hadn't heard this about UC Davis:
Special programs at the University of California, Davis offer narrowly tailored grants based on sexual orientation, “gender identity” and immigration status, The College Fix has learned.

UC Davis’s AB540 and Undocumented Student Center offers a variety of grants intended for students who are in the country illegally. Among them are “emergency grants,” a “bedding grant” and an “UnducoScholar award.”

The emergency grants, which are capped at $500, stipulate that the recipient must have “AB540 undocumented status,” must have a “DREAM Act application on file with UC Davis Financial Aid Office,” and must have exhausted all other financial aid opportunities at the university...

Similarly, the university’s LGBTQIA+ Resource Center distributes grants to “LGBTQIA+” students. “Since funding is limited,” the application reads, “we ask that only those who identify as LGBTQIA+ and have no access to other resources and forms of continuous and abundant financial support utilize this grant.”

Reached via email, Elizabeth Coté, a representative from the Center, told The College Fix: “There are no measures taken to confirm the identities of those who apply for grants. We utilize the criteria provided by the private donor funding this grant. Scholars either self-identify as meeting those criteria or not."

Julia Ann Easley, a campus spokeswoman, corroborated this procedure to The Fix via email: “A private donor funds the emergency grants available through the LGBTQIA Resource Center. To meet those criteria for the grants, students self-identify.”

Easley also told The Fix that the grants for students in the country illegally are funded by “a combination of developed funds and U.C. Davis President’s Undocumented Students Initiative.”
Can't argue at all with private funding, although one wonders if a government university should be in the business of distributing money in such a flagrantly discriminatory way.  I hope no taxpayer money is involved in this; no information is given regarding the source of "developed funds" or the "Undocumented Students Initiative".


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