It's taken 64 years, but Columbia University is finally responding to requests to lift restrictions on a fellowship that is only allowed to be awarded to white students.

The Lydia C. Roberts graduate and traveling fellowship was established in 1920 by Lydia C. Chamberlain, an Iowa native who left the bulk of her $509,000 estate to the school the year that she died.

The fellowship, which likely violates the United States Constitution, was created with a number of decidedly restrictive stipulations. Among them, all eligible recipients must be Caucasian, from Iowa, must return to Iowa to live for a minimum of two years after graduation, and candidates are prohibited from studying law, medicine, dentistry, veterinary surgery or theology.

Limitations on the fellowship cannot be lifted except by court order, and as such, University officials in collaboration with JPMorgan Chase Bank, which administrates the trust, have filed an affidavit with the Manhattan state Supreme Court to remedy the controversial situation.

"Circumstances have so changed from the time that the Trust was established [that complying with the restrictions are] impossible," the court papers state. "Columbia University is now prohibited by law and University policy from discriminating on the basis of race."

The Associated Press reports that the court filing asks for the whites-only provision to be thrown out and also suggests a revision to the Iowa-only rule.

The racist provision of the fellowship was first breached when the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) approached officials at the University to protest the existence of such a discriminatory award in 1949.

Columbia's provost at the time, Grayson L. Kirk, responded to the NAACP objection by defending the fellowship and stated "we do not feel we are justified in depriving some of our students of the benefits of restricted grants because they are not available to everyone."

In the interim, the Ivy League university continued doling out the trust fund, which today is worth over $800,000, to the Caucasian-only population of its student body. A study body that the RT News Network reports is currently more diverse than ever, comprised of approximately 40 percent white students and 60 percent minorities.

In keeping up with the school's current level of diversity and the far-reaching advancements made by minority populations over the better part of the last half century, Columbia insists it has not awarded the fellowship to any students since 1997.

"Columbia long ago ceased awarding the fellowship in question and does not follow gift conditions that violate anti-discrimination laws," the University said in a statement on Wednesday. "It should go without saying that a university rightly known for the great diversity of its student body is as offended as anyone by the requirements of these fellowships."