Conservative campaigners are taking aim at a federal scholarship program that has, for decades, helped Native Hawaiian students train for healthcare careers and encouraged them to work in some of Hawaii’s most medically under-served communities.
The lawsuit was filed last week by Do No Harm, a Virginia-based advocacy group for healthcare clinicians that says it is focused on keeping identity politics out of medical education, research and clinical practice. The group is challenging the US health department’s Native Hawaiian Health Scholarship Program, or NHHSP, in federal court.
The legal complaint alleges racial discrimination in a program that was created to support Native Hawaiian students and strengthen healthcare access in communities that continue to face shortages of medical practitioners. According to the group, the scholarship structure is unconstitutional because it is based on race.
The Native Hawaiian Health Scholarship Program has long been tied to both education and public service. It provides financial support to students pursuing healthcare careers, with the broader goal of improving access to care in parts of Hawaii where medical services are limited. Supporters of such programs generally view them as a way to address persistent gaps in care by building a local workforce that is more likely to remain in the communities it serves.
Do No Harm’s challenge places that approach under renewed legal scrutiny. The organization has made opposition to race-conscious policies a central part of its work, especially in medical education and healthcare training. Its lawsuit adds to a broader national debate over how government programs should address historic and ongoing inequities while also meeting constitutional limits on the use of race.
The case could have implications beyond the scholarship program itself if the court sides with the plaintiffs. A ruling against NHHSP would test how federally funded initiatives aimed at helping specific communities can be structured when those communities are defined by ancestry or ethnicity.
For now, the scholarship program remains the focus of the challenge. The suit seeks to dismantle a policy that has been used to help Native Hawaiian students enter the healthcare field and, in turn, expand medical care in communities that have long been underserved.
The case is expected to draw attention from healthcare advocates, Indigenous rights supporters and opponents of race-based public programs as it moves through the federal court system.
