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The highest court in Iowa has ruled against the use of race in higher education financial aid programs, joining a growing number of similar court rulings following the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision against the use of race in admissions.
The Iowa case arose from a gift made by Dr. Ezra Totton to the University of Iowa for black students who, like him, wish to pursue a career in chemistry.
Totton had been denied admission to the University of Tennessee in 1939 based on his skin color, and attended the University of Iowa instead. To comply with the Supreme Court’s Students for Fair Admissions ruling, in 2025 the University of Iowa attempted to change the gift’s “black student” qualification to “first generation student.”
The Iowa Supreme Court held that the change was inconsistent with Dr. Totton’s wishes, and therefore state law, holding that “there is a world of difference between Dr. Totton’s experience as a victim of a pernicious regime of de jure racial segregation … and the life of a first-generation college student today at the University.”
The ruling sends the case back to the district court with instructions to formulate an alternative plan for the funds.
Conservative groups view the ruling as a win for a colorblind Constitution.
The case was “a major victory for generations of students to come in Iowa,” Carrie Severino, president of the conservative Judicial Network, posted on X.
“The Iowa Supreme Court got it right,” Monica Harris, the executive director of Fair for All, a conservative advocacy group, told The College Fix. “The district court’s ‘wait and see’ approach, demanding conclusive proof that SFFA applies before acknowledging even the practical difficulties of administering a race-restricted scholarship, set too high a bar.”
Advocates for Totton say the case could still go their way.
“We believe the district court should still honor Dr. Totton’s wishes on remand,” according to David Walker, NAACP co-counsel and retired dean of the Drake University Law School.
In his brief coauthored with the ACLU, Walker told the court that “relevant evidence does not support repurposing Dr. Totton’s scholarship funds for the benefit of first generation students. Doing so would not align with Dr. Totton’s general charitable purpose as required.”
Reconciling the gift and the SFFA decision is still possible, according to Harris: “Courts should treat these as sequential questions: first, has the restriction become impracticable under SFFA? Second, what modification best honors the donor’s underlying purpose within what the law now permits?”
Harris agreed that Totton’s intent should be paramount.
“On remand, the district court’s most important task will be to ensure that someone genuinely advocates for Dr. Totton’s intent,” she said. “The attorney general represented the University, not the donor’s estate, which left a real gap in the proceeding.”
“The court should allow a party with a special interest in the charitable trust to participate, and it should take seriously the full record of who Dr. Totton was, why he made this gift, and what he likely would have wanted if a race-based restriction proved unworkable.”
Both Harris and Walker agreed that institutions should avoid using proxies for race.
“The ACLU and I are very cautious as to using things like socioeconomic factors or first-generation status in place of race,” Walker said. “The U.S. Attorney General’s office has already made it clear that those kinds of proxies are suspect.”
In July 2025, the DOJ released a memo labelling first generation and other statuses as inappropriate proxies for race.
“If courts routinely allow universities to substitute first-generation or low-income criteria for race-based restrictions,” Harris told The Fix, “donors who gave specifically to support black students or other historically excluded groups will see their intent erased through an administrative cy-près maneuver. That’s a very troubling precedent for philanthropic intent generally.”
Harris also expressed concern that many universities are not complying with SFFA and choosing to use proxies for race to control their admissions and financial aid numbers, a trend The College Fix has previously reported on.
“Compliance has been uneven,” she said. “On admissions, which was the direct holding of SFFA, most selective universities have formally ended explicit race-based preferences, although the degree of genuine compliance versus creative workarounds varies and is actively being tested in courts. With regard to scholarships, fellowships, affinity-based programs, compliance has been slower and more contested.”
“FAIR has been consistent in the belief that voluntary compliance tends to happen when institutions have legal clarity and institutional leadership willing to act on it.”
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