FFRF awards $20K in minority scholarships

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is delighted to provide, in partnership with Black Skeptics Los Angeles, student scholarships totaling $20,000, double the amount awarded last year.

FFRF is granting Black Skeptics Los Angeles, an African-American humanist-atheist community-based organization, $20,000 for four awards to outstanding secular students of color who will be first in their family to attend college. Each recipient will receive $5,000 to support college education and expenses through FFRF’s Forward Freethought Scholarship fund, generously endowed by FFRF member Lance Bredvold. The application deadline is June 26.

In 2013, Black Skeptics Los Angeles spearheaded its First in the Family Humanist Scholarship initiative, which focuses on undocumented, foster care, homeless, LGBTQI, system-involved and secular youth who are underrepresented in the college population. FFRF previously has been underwriting annual $2,500 scholarships for four students in partnership with BSLA. Special consideration this year will be given to students on whom the pandemic has had an economic impact.

“The Freedom From Religion Foundation is proud to continue supporting freethinking students of color — a minority within a minority,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “They need all the encouragement they can get, even more so in the trying times we’re experiencing.”

Black Skeptics Los Angeles founder Sikivu Hutchinson, who will be speaking at FFRF’s convention later this year, explains the purpose of the scholarship program.

“Secular African-American youth disproportionately come from religious backgrounds and communities,” she says. “These youth are often marginalized in K-12 and higher education due to their nonconformity. This scholarship program provides a platform for their voices and experiences.”