An Oregon minority advocacy group announced that it now plans to offer diversity scholarships to white students. According to a piece by Janie Har at The Oregonian:
The stipends will be small, perhaps no more than $2,000 over five years, for students to study race relations in college. The idea is to get students to translate what they learn in school into action in life.
The Oregon League of Minority Voters has not figured out details for the awards, to be issued this spring, said Promise King, executive director of the statewide nonprofit organization. But recipients must live in Oregon. And they can’t be of Asian, African, Latino or Native descent.
“The minorities we have in Oregon are not in a position to effect changes,” King said. “The ones in position to effect changes are white.”
While individual schools do occasionally give diversity scholarships to white students, the OLMV plan appears to be the first time a specifically minority association has decided to offer scholarship money to non-minorities.
About 20 percent of Oregon’s population is made up of ethnic minorities.
