Minnesota Health Department Drops Race-Based Grant Program After DOJ Civil Rights Review

The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) has suspended a grant program that restricted eligibility based on race, following a compliance review opened by the U.S. Department of Justice under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, according to a DOJ announcement made Tuesday.

The program in question, called the Capacity Strengthening Initiative, limited eligible grantees to organizations serving "people of color," gave "strategic consideration" and "priority" to proposals from organizations "led by populations of color," and directed a higher proportion of funding specifically toward Black or African American and nonwhite Latino communities, according to the DOJ.

A 2023 summary from the third-party Grant Portal described the program as designed "to support and strengthen the capacity of metro and rural community-based organizations and faith-based organizations serving people of color, American Indians, LGBTQIA+, and people living with disabilities."

The Legal Problem

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act prohibits any recipient of federal financial assistance from discriminating on the basis of race, color, or national origin. MDH receives federal funding, which made the race-specific eligibility criteria a straightforward legal problem.

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the DOJ's Civil Rights Division stated the issue plainly: "Recipients of federal dollars cannot decide who benefits from those funds on the basis of race, color, or national origin. The Department appreciates that the State of Minnesota has recognized this foundational principle and has repealed the statute governing the program."

MDH did not just suspend the grant. Minnesota also repealed the statute that created and governed it, according to the DOJ statement.

The Policy Argument on the Other Side

Supporters of race-targeted public health grants argue that color-blind funding often fails to reach communities facing documented disparities in health outcomes. Minnesota's program, in that framing, was an attempt to direct limited public health dollars toward the populations most likely to be underserved by conventional outreach. The argument is that race-neutral grant structures frequently reproduce existing inequalities because organizations already embedded in underserved communities lack the institutional infrastructure to compete on equal footing.

The legal response is that Title VI does not carve out exceptions for well-intentioned disparate impact goals. The Supreme Court's strict scrutiny standard for racial classifications is demanding, and government programs that sort people by race carry a high burden to survive it. Dhillon has argued in other contexts, including against Evanston, Illinois's reparations program, that race-based allocations of government funds cannot clear that bar. The Minnesota program, by explicitly restricting eligibility rather than just targeting outreach, sat squarely in the territory Title VI prohibits.

What Happened and When

The DOJ's announcement came Tuesday. The source does not specify a date for when MDH originally suspended the program relative to the DOJ review opening, so the precise sequence is not established in the available record.

The DOJ did not announce a penalty or a funding clawback. MDH's compliance was voluntary, and the DOJ framed that cooperation positively. No charges have been filed, and no litigation is pending based on what the DOJ disclosed.

Broader Context

This action fits a consistent pattern from the DOJ's Civil Rights Division under Dhillon. The department has pursued Title VI compliance reviews against institutions ranging from universities to municipal reparations programs. UCLA is separately under DOJ review over alleged illegal DEI admissions practices, according to Fox News.

The Minnesota case is notable because the state did not fight the review. It repealed the governing statute outright, a more complete response than simply pausing the grant cycle. That suggests the state's legal counsel concluded the program's race-based eligibility language was not defensible under current federal civil rights law.

The open question now is whether Minnesota will redesign the program using race-neutral criteria such as income level, geographic health outcome data, or organizational capacity in underserved ZIP codes to achieve similar public health goals without the Title VI exposure. The DOJ announcement does not address whether a redesigned program is under discussion.