Scholarships
Secular Student Alliance Scholarship
Atheists United proudly partners with the Secular Student Alliance to offer a $1,000 Southern California scholarship annually. Students in high school and college are eligible to apply.
Our 2023 Scholarship Application is now open till July 31st, 2023.
We partner with the Secular Student Alliance to offer this scholarship
Lorraine Hansberry Humanist Scholarship
Atheists United proudly partnered with Black Skeptics Los Angeles to offer $500 annually towards the Larraine Hansberry Humanist Scholarship program.
Awardees are outstanding South Los Angeles students who are challenging racism, sexism, homophobia, and injustice in their schools and communities and receive up to $1,000 in scholarships to assist with their tuition, room and board, books, and other academic resources.
This award is available to Women’s Leadership Project and Young Male Scholars’ graduating seniors and alumni (multi-year awards are provided to alumni to aid their graduation).
We partner with Black Skeptics Los Angeles to offer this scholarship
Sponsor a Scholarship
Every dollar raised here goes to fund secular student scholarships.
Scholarship Recipients
2023
Lorraine Hansberry Humanist Scholarship
Secular Student Alliance Scholarships
Erin — $1,000
California Polytechnic San Luis Obispo
Secular Student Alliance Scholarship
A legal studies major at the University of California at Berkeley, Erin's educational aspirations center around attending law school with a specific focus on becoming a public defender. Her strong sense of duty drives her passion for advocating for those without a voice in the criminal justice system. She firmly believes in recognizing the inherent humanity of all individuals, irrespective of their circumstances or accusations, and she opposes the prison industrial complex, advocating for quality legal representation for everyone, regardless of their economic status.
Growing up, Erin always identified as secular, embracing reason and evidence-based thinking in contrast to religious beliefs that surrounded her. Despite societal pressures, she learned to value her secularism as a strength, guiding her towards free-thinking, intellectual curiosity, and personal responsibility. Erin's secularism has shaped her moral values, emphasizing reason, compassion, and empathy while respecting others' beliefs and advocating for the separation of religion and state.
Erin's personal experiences with incarceration have deeply influenced her perspective. She views higher education as a powerful tool to break the cycle of incarceration and transform lives. By pursuing higher education, formerly incarcerated individuals can not only change their own destinies but also become advocates for systemic change, dismantling barriers that perpetuate recidivism.
Erin is actively involved in campus organizations supporting reentry students and those affected by the criminal justice system, serving as a Retention Chair and Wellness Coordinator for the Underground Scholars at UC Berkeley. She believes education can counteract the prison industrial complex and aims to draft bills, publish articles, and advocate for organizations that benefit formerly incarcerated individuals. Furthermore, Erin intends to establish a Secular Student Alliance chapter at UC Berkeley to provide support and a sense of community for secular students on campus, promoting diversity of thought and evidence-based decision-making.
Mahesh — $1,000
California Polytechnic San Luis Obispo
Secular Student Alliance Scholarship
Mahesh is an academically focused student pursuing electrical engineering at California Polytechnic San Luis Obispo. He values engineering for its demand for rational thought and critical thinking skills to solve complex problems. Beyond his academic pursuits, Mahesh is a staunch activist, particularly concerned about injustices faced by minority communities worldwide.
Growing up as a black child, Mahesh's parents instilled in him a deep understanding of the systemic injustices faced by minorities. This awareness fueled his commitment to activism from a young age. He believes that it's crucial to confront and expose injustice to better humanity, making it a shared responsibility.
Mahesh's atheism stems from his experiences with his mother's religious beliefs. Their family practiced a denomination of Hinduism that caused his mother tremendous anxiety, as she believed every positive or negative event in her life was determined by divine karma. This led Mahesh to embrace rationalism and evidence-based thinking, recognizing that these principles underlie the progress of human society. He has consistently been an advocate for peaceful protest and civil disobedience as potent tools for driving social change.
Mahesh's secularism is deeply intertwined with his African-American heritage. He sees religion as a tool historically used to subjugate marginalized communities, from justifying slavery to opposing civil rights and gender equality. He recognizes the pivotal role of religion in these issues and is committed to challenging its influence on societal structures.
2022
Samantha — $1,000
University of California, Los Angeles
Secular Student Alliance Scholarship
A sophomore at the University of California, Los Angeles, Samantha is completing her BA in public affairs and sociology and plans to attend law school to be a public defender or a labor and employment lawyer to help improve the lives of those who are systematically marginalized. After a long journey of challenging her religious beliefs and identifying the many contradictions carried out by the Catholic Church, Samantha identifies as agnostic and post-institutional. Raised in a Catholic household, Samantha was passively against gay marriage and supported traditional gender norms. Her transition to secularism opened her mind as she experienced issues of race, gender, and class from a new perspective.
As a Hispanic female, Samantha actively fights beliefs promoted by the Christian right by fighting for abortion rights, LGBTQ+ rights, and the separation of church and state. She was involved with climate activism throughout high school and was the Head Organizer of the Miami chapter of Fridays for Future, organizing strikes with over 600 students. At UCLA, Samantha is involved with university workers’ unions and Green New Deal UCLA. She is also working with Sunrise LA and Street Watch LA to fight for climate justice and tenants’ and houseless peoples’ rights. Samantha’s scholarship is sponsored by Atheists United, Humanist Association of Orange County, Inland Empire Atheists Agnostics and Humanists, Americans United Orange County Chapter, and the Humanists of Santa Barbara.
Douglas — $1,000
University of California, Merced
Secular Student Alliance Scholarship
Douglas is an environment enthusiast, a former undocumented student from Brazil, and a Portuguese and Spanish language interpreter. He graduated from Modesto Junior College. Currently a full-time environmental engineering student at UC Merced, he plans to make an impact in water management and conservation.
In Brazil, Douglas grew up as a Catholic. After moving to the United States, a friend questioned him about the bible. This eventually led him to question his faith. The Atheist Experience and The Thinking Atheist podcast made Douglas realize he was not alone. Attending the American Atheist Convention in Salt Lake City gave him new inspiration to do as many good things in the world as possible just for the sake of being good. Douglas identifies as a secular humanist and agnostic atheist.
Douglas chose to go to the University of California Merced because it was the only school in the central valley that offered his environmental engineering major and also having an SSA chapter was a big plus. However, when he started in the fall, the chapter officers had just graduated. To find a secular community and continue the legacy of the chapter, Douglas restarted the chapter and became the president. The chapter will be working with Planned Parenthood, LGBT+ organizations, and organizing a campus blood drive. Douglas says, “the work that SSA does is crucial to our community’s representation in the university environment because many students are for the first time exposed to anywhere outside their inter-circle and develop critical thinking.
Douglas’ scholarship is sponsored by Atheists United, Humanist Association of Orange County, Inland Empire Atheists Agnostics and Humanists, Americans United Orange County Chapter, and the Humanists of Santa Barbara.
Christina — $1,000
California Institute of the Arts
Secular Student Alliance Scholarship
Christina is a non-traditional student earning her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design at the California Institute of the Arts. Coming from a Latinx background, Christina was raised in a Protestant family and socialized to believe she was less important than men. She began to question her religious beliefs in high school when she became friends with people from different backgrounds and different belief systems.
While she was still too young to vote, Christina’s secular activism began in 2008 with the fight against California’s Prop 8, which banned same-sex marriage in the state. Christina began attending Gay-Straight Alliance meetings and protests. More recently, she attended Black Lives Matter protests, and is involved with her local Democratic Socialists of America chapter as well as Planned Parenthood. Christina says being “marginalized by my race, sexuality, and gender has prompted me to accept, celebrate, and fight for others who are similarly marginalized.”
Christina is starting a Secular Student Alliance chapter at the California Institute of the Arts. Local schools have adopted policies that harm marginalized students, especially transgender students, on a theological basis. She attends meetings at city hall and promotes secularism on a local level in Santa Clarita, which has the largest Mormon population outside of Salt Lake City.
Douglas — $1,000
University of California, Merced
Secular Student Alliance Scholarship
In March 2001, Douglas immigrated from Brazil to the United States as a teen who did not speak English. Six months later, the terrorist attacks of 9/11 changed immigration laws abruptly and he became undocumented. Recently, Douglas graduated with an associate’s degree and transferred to UC Merced to study environmental engineering, with a hope to lessen the impact humans have on the environment and solve issues related to water usage and the shortage of affordable green housing.
Douglas began to question his faith in 2009 and now identifies as a secular humanist agnostic atheist. Being a non-believer and an immigrant, he has faced unwanted prejudice, preconceived biases, and rejection. He explains, “my experience as an immigrant in this country has taught me to disregard insults and preconceived judgments, similar to daily situations experienced by the unhoused population. That experience has humbled me to reserve judgment and act with compassion to achieve the human well-being goal.”
Douglas volunteers with Atheist Helping the Homeless in Modesto, California. This academic year, he is working to revive the Secular Student Alliance on campus to serve as community support for nonreligious students and promote well-intentioned activism.
2021
2020
Bradley — $1,000
UCLA School of Dentistry
Secular Student Alliance Scholarship
Bradley is in his second year of graduate school and received his undergraduate degree in Biological Sciences with departmental honors. In high school and college, he devoted much of his free time to take on leadership roles in organizations helping adults and children with physical and mental disabilities.
As a gay, former Orthodox Jewish American, Bradley had an interesting path to his secular identity. Growing up in an Orthodox Jewish community, he describes his experience as “living in a bubble.” Not knowing anyone outside of the community, his worldview was limited. Moving to New York City to attend college prompted new interactions with different minority groups and people. Reflecting on the AIDS epidemic and LGBTQ+ struggles, he began to move away from his religious upbringing. Deciding that “the only way to live [his] life happily and with any purpose would be to come out and begin to live a secular life with distance from [his] religious upbringing.”
He is a member of his local LGBT center where he assists current and former members of the religious Jewish communities to become confident in being their true selves. Bradley’s scholarship is sponsored by Atheists United and the Humanist Association of Orange County.
In 2020 Atheists United co-sponsored this scholarship with the Humanist Association of Orange County.