Citing their fear of lawsuits and negative backlash, college and university officials around the country are opening scholarships and fellowships to white students that were once set aside exclusively for minorities.

According to a March 14 article in The New York Times, institutions such as Pepperdine University, the State University of New York and Southern Illinois Univerisity recently made alterations to several of their scholarships and as a result granted hundreds of thousands of dollars to white students.

These actions occurred in the wake of two 2003 Supreme Court cases that examined how the University of Michigan evaluates race during its admissions process, according to the article.

When UMich, one of the nation’s top law schools, denied admission to Barbara Gruttinger, a white Michigan resident with a 3.8 GPA and a 161/180 LSAT score, she brought suit against the school claiming it discriminated against her based on her race, in effect violating the Fourteenth Amendment, according to the case.

According to the case, Gruttinger said she was discriminated against because the law school used race against her, giving minority applicants a greater chance.

The court upheld the ruling based on the grounds that the school’s administration said using race in admissions is beneficial to creating a diverse flow of ideas. However, according to the Gratz v. Bollinger case, the court found that UMich’s scoring system for undergraduates violates the Equal Protection Clause and should not have awarded extra points to those of a specific racial background.

The Equal Protection Clause is a component of the Fourteenth Amendment that reads that “no state shall … deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

In response to a separate lawsuit, Southern Illinois University officials decided last month to allow non-minorities to apply for scholarships and fellowships that were once exclusively available to students and minorities and women. The Times article reported that SIU “reached a consent decree to last month with the Justice Department [to change its policy].”

Jerry Blakemore, general counsel for SIU, said the Times article incorrectly reported the change in SIU’s policy for applicants for their scholarships, adding the changes dealt with employment opportunities as well as scholastics.

“The consent decree that SIU has entered into with the Justice Department had nothing to do with scholarships,” Blakemore said. “These programs were programs that had to do with employment requirements attached to them, so they were not purely scholarships.”

Blakemore said SIU administrators have received considerable feedback about this issue since the decree.

“We believe that the [correct thing to do] is to comply with the law and at some time within the confines of the law make diversity not only a goal but a reality,” he said.

“The University has embarked upon an initiative that will increase minority involvement across the board,” Blakemore continued.

According to Blakemore, the only change the SIU has made is to allow anyone who is interested in a program to apply for it.

“It’s not that we’re changing the method for distributing dollars,” Blakemore said.

Currently, SIU is still listing minority and women scholarships on its website.

According to the Times article, solid data on the numbers of institutions changing their policies is unclear because institutions have been tight lipped about announcing or discussing what changes they have made.

Some private institutions, such as Boston University and Harvard University, do not offer minority-specific scholarships and fellowships to university applicants.

“At Harvard we have a fully need-based financial aid program,” said Sally Donahue, director of financial aid at Harvard.

According to BU spokesman Colin Riley, BU does not currently fund any scholarships designed strictly for minority students.

However, he noted in an email that BU does give scholarships with restrictions on potential recipients, including ethnic background. There are several hundred funds given to the university with restrictions that must be honored.