Hi everyone, I am the attorney at the New Civil Liberties Alliance who filed the lawsuit to force the Department of Education to stop discriminating on the basis of applicants' nationality (i.e., native language).
I can confirm this type of discrimination has been consistent and systematic since 1998, when the Department change its rules with the explicit purpose to favor "native born" applicants.
The Department draws a (nonsensical) distinction between "native" speakers and "heritage" speakers and has systematically discriminated against both categories for over two decades. Because my client was deemed a "heritage" speaker, we were only able to force the Department to stop discriminating against similar "heritage" speaker applicants. And so the Department continued to discriminate against those whom it deemed to be "native" speakers this cycle.
In response to NCLA's lawsuit, the Department has agreed to rewrite its rules for the next application cycle. But that does not help native speakers who suffered this cycle. In effect, the Department admits what it has been doing is wrong but was too lazy to change its practice for the 2022 cycle.
If you are an applicant who was denied the fellowship this cycle because of your status as a native speaker, I would be interested in hearing from you. My email is sheng.li@ncla.legal.
