Pamela Swanigan, a graduate student at the University of Connecticut, claims she was lied to by campus administrators who told her they’d given her a merit-based scholarship, when instead they’d given her a diversity-based one.
Swanigan is preparing to sue the university.
The Center for Individual Rights is representing Swanigan, who says her budding career has been “tarnished” by the misrepresentation, as diversity or multicultural-based scholarships are viewed by potential employers as far less prestigious than merit-based ones.
“My goal is to ensure that students are treated as individuals regardless of race and regardless of other efforts to promote racial diversity,” states Swanigan, whose father is black and whose mother is white. “I wanted — and still want — to compete on the basis of my academic abilities just like any other student.”
The lawsuit was filed early last month in federal court, accusing the university of racial discrimination and claims its administrators defrauded Swanigan by luring her to enroll at the university under false pretenses. CIR alleges in its lawsuit that “in an acceptance letter to Swanigan, the Director of Graduate Studies offered her a merit-based scholarship called the ‘Vice Provost’s Award for Excellence’… It turned out that no such program as the ‘Vice Provost’s Award for Excellence’ existed at the time she applied.”
The lawsuit continues: “Swanigan was shocked and dismayed to discover that the only award she had been receiving since enrolling in UConn was the ‘Multicultural Scholars Program’ award.”
