By Emily Hallas | Washington Examiner
A civil rights organization filed a lawsuit against McDonald’s over concerns the company’s scholarship program for high schoolers discriminates against non-Hispanic students.
The American Alliance for Equal Rights mounted the challenge to McDonald’s HACER program over the weekend, arguing that denying aid on the basis of race is unconstitutional. The group alleged that the scholarship initiative, which has handed out $33 million in funding to thousands of Latino students, violates the United States’s civil rights laws because it doesn’t offer the same opportunities to non-Hispanic students.
AAER filed the lawsuit after a high school senior from Arkansas was turned down for the HACER program because she was white.
“McDonald’s gives unusually large scholarships (up to $100,000) through a program called HACER. The catch? McDonald’s gives them only to Hispanics,” the lawsuit says.