Last fall, the Pacific Legal Foundation filed a lawsuit against the Minority Teachers of Illinois Scholarship Program, citing its “race-based criteria.” The MTI awards scholarships of up to $7,500 to minority students who plan to become teachers.
PLF seeks to dismantle a scholarship program designed to support minority educators, framing it as a constitutional violation.
“Illinois can offer assistance to young, aspiring teachers, but not when they exclude a significant number of applicants based on their skin color,” said PLF attorney Erin Wilcox. “The exclusion of non-minority applicants not only misses the mark on providing an equal opportunity for all future teachers, but it also violates the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause.”
Rep. Carol Ammons, who represents the 103rd District encompassing Champaign-Urbana, defended MTI.
“The Minority Teachers of Illinois Scholarship Program has provided financial assistance to qualified students of color — this state’s future teachers — over its 32-year history,” Ammons said via email. “The benefit to the state is clear: it helps ensure that our classrooms’ teachers more closely reflect the classrooms’ students. Having a teaching core that resembles the students taught is of critical public interest.”
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Ammons said she has since co-sponsored a resolution in the General Assembly supporting MTI and called on the governor, attorney general and “all those with legal jurisdiction” to defend MTI while criticizing the lawsuit as an attack on civil rights.
“The lawsuit was filed by a right-wing political group,” Ammons said. “They outrageously claim that this program, which contributes significantly to the public interest, is somehow detrimental to white people. This is blatant racism, and it is a sad day for civil rights in our country that a lawsuit like this would even be heard in the year 2025. This is a cynical attempt to weaponize the state against our communities of color, and it should be treated as an attack.”
Such lawsuits reflect broader political challenges to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. The Trump administration has issued executive orders that terminate DEI activities in the federal government, cancel affirmative action for the federal workforce and influence the rolling back of DEI in the private sector.
In response, the Illinois General Assembly adopted resolution HR0117, which condemned the “targeting of DEI” by the Trump administration.
“President Donald Trump has launched an unprecedented assault on workers’ rights, civil rights, pay equality, and workplace safety in an executive order targeting ‘diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility’ efforts in workplaces,” the resolution read. “We condemn the false, hateful comments President Trump and his allies have used to impugn and demean working people.
