Doug Gross, a recipient of the controversial fellowship in 1976, says he supports Columbia’s decision to petition to do away with the Whites-only requirement.
But as it turns out, Lydia C. Chamberlain, an Iowa native who donated her $500,000 estate to Columbia University shortly before she died in 1920, insisted that her funds be used to endow graduate and traveling fellowships for recipients born in Iowa who were exclusively “of the Caucasian race.”
“I had no idea,” says Gross, in an interview with Diverse. “If I had known, I never would have accepted it.”
Gross, a prominent Iowa attorney and former Republican gubernatorial candidate who faced off against then Governor Tom Vilsack in 2002, says that he fully supports Columbia’s decision to petition a Manhattan Supreme Court to do away with the outdated requirement that only Whites should receive the fellowship.
“I think they ought to change it,” he says. “It’s ridiculous to have this kind of provision in place, and it should be eliminated right away.”
Although Gross received the fellowship, he did not graduate from Columbia. He took a leave of absence and eventually dropped out, opting to earn a law degree from Drake University in 1985. For years, he served as the chief of staff to former Governor Terry Branstad before launching a failed bid against Vilsack.
In an affidavit submitted several weeks ago to the Supreme Court, Lucy Drotning, Columbia’s associate provost for planning and institutional research, lent her support to the request made by the fund’s administrator, JPMorgan Chase Bank, to do away with the Whites-only clause.
