Google quietly backtracks university fellowship’s racial quota

Google recently came under fire for reportedly limiting the number of White and Asian students that universities could nominate for its Ph.D. Fellowship program. After receiving pushback, however, Google quietly reversed the policy.

The fellowship, launched in 2009, forwards Google’s mission to nurture and maintain “strong relations with the academic community” by supporting “graduate students doing exceptional and innovative research in areas relevant to computer science and related fields…as they pursue their PhD, as well as connect them to a Google Research Mentor.”

In the original fellowship FAQ, according to The Washington Free Beacon, Google stated that “[i]f a university chooses to nominate more than two students, the third and fourth nominees must self-identify as a woman, Black / African descent, Hispanic / Latino / Latinx, Indigenous, and/or a person with a disability.”

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Following backlash and complaints, however, Google quietly reversed the program's racial quota. 

Instead of requiring the previously implemented racial quota, Google now only “strongly encourage[s]” a diverse candidate pool from universities. 

A variety of prominent academic institutions have nominated students for the fellowship since the policy’s adoption, including Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the University of California, Berkeley.

Utkarsh Jain, a student at UC Berkeley, was disappointed to learn of his university being involved with Google’s discriminatory fellowship.

Jain told Campus Reform that he is “horrified” that Berkeley would cast aside “more than half its student population to achieve some ‘woke’ agenda.”

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He also slammed Google for implementing the policy. 

“It disgusts me to hear that Google limits its search of candidates to certain people based on immutable characteristics that do not tell any employer the skills, knowledge, or any other capabilities the candidate may have based on the job description,” said Jain.

Jain went on to note how the policy would negatively affect people like himself.

“This type of racial discrimination keeps many Asian students like myself away from things like better universities, activities, internship opportunities, and anything else that would benefit them,” Jain concluded.

Google and the universities mentioned in this article were contacted for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.

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