The Department of Health and Human Services is investigating a complaint that three of its Biden-era healthcare training programs are illegally distributing federal grant money based on applicants’ skin color.
Cornell University law professor William Jacobson, who founded the Equal Protection Project to promote colorblind civil rights policies, filed the complaint in October.
It asks the agency to cancel three minority fellowships the Biden administration launched in September 2024 to steer $5.7 million toward training Black, Hispanic and Indigenous students as counselors and social workers.
The complaint noted that $2.77 million was already awarded, mostly during President Trump’s second term. The grants pay for racial minorities to complete mental health, addiction counseling and social work credentials.
The HHS Office of Civil Rights confirmed in a Thursday letter to Mr. Jacobson that it was probing the fellowships for illegally requiring grant recipients to meet “race-based selection criteria.”
“OCR enforces Federal civil rights laws that prohibit discrimination in the delivery of health and human services based on race, color, national origin, disability, age, sex, religion, and the exercise of conscience,” Jamie Rahn Ballay, an HHS regional manager, wrote in the letter obtained by The Washington Times.
She confirmed that the grants could violate Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, which prohibits preferential treatment in federal healthcare programs based on race or skin color.
Mr. Jacobson noted in an interview with The Times that Mr. Trump reversed two of former President Joseph R. Biden’s executive orders calling for such grants shortly after he returned to office in January 2025.
“Although HHS has weeded out most of the discriminatory grant programs they had, we found three holdovers from the Biden administration,” Mr. Jacobson said in a phone call. “We are asking HHS to live up to the law and President Trump’s executive orders.”
Mr. Jacobson said he has filed dozens of civil rights complaints with the federal government since launching the Equal Protection Project in 2023.
Several of his cases have proved successful — including a December 2023 complaint with the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights that led the University of Arkansas to voluntarily end a Walmart corporate mentoring program open only to racial minorities.
It remains unclear how long the investigation into the three mental health grant programs will last. A source at Health and Human Services said the agency does not comment on active cases.
Attorney Gail Heriot, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and former independent member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, said the minority fellowships are among decades of federal programs that have awarded taxpayer-funded grants based on race or ethnicity rather than financial need.
“Such programs are unconstitutional,” Ms. Heriot said. “It’s going to take a lot of effort to root them out, but it has to be done.”
The Trump administration has canceled dozens of Biden administration programs that steered federal money toward historically disadvantaged minority groups they identified as needing a leg up in education and the workplace.
The future of such programs remains unclear. Analysts on both sides of the issue expect Democrats to restore billions of dollars in canceled grants and defend them in court if they regain control of the White House in 2028.
Omekongo Dibinga, a professor of intercultural communications affiliated with American University’s Antiracist Research and Policy Center, accused the Trump team of gutting “programs that help improve health outcomes for Black and Brown communities” harmed by generations of racism.
“Furthermore, no one wants to talk about the histories of health disparities that led to the health crisis so many in our communities suffer from now,” Mr. Dibinga said in an email. “It’s disgraceful.”
