Case Particulars

Tribunal

Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights

Date Filed

January 13, 2025

Docket No.

N/A

Case Status

OCR Complaint Filed

Case Overview

On January 13, 2025, the Equal Protection Project (EPP) filed a Civil Rights Complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) against Grand Valley State University (GVSU) of Michigan for 11 scholarships that discriminate on the basis of race, color, and/or national origin.

From the Complaint:

These scholarships are listed, promoted, and administered through the GVSU myScholarships system. According to the GVSU website, applicants access this system by logging in and providing their records and information to determine scholarship eligibility. By doing so, students grant GVSU complete access to match them with potential scholarships. [image omitted]

 

The scholarships listed below are currently offered to GVSU students and applicants for admission, according to the GVSU website, and violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VI”) and its implementing regulations by illegally discriminating against students based on their race, color, and/or national origin. Because GVSU is a public university, these discriminatory scholarships also violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Each of the scholarships listed below are available for the 2025-2026 school year with the application period currently open, according to the GVSU website, and some are renewable annually.

The Complaint then, using GVSU’s own website, explains the discriminatory nature of each scholarship.

Following that, the Complaint explains in detail why such scholarships violate the law:

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act prohibits intentional discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin in any “program or activity” that receives federal financial assistance. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000d. The term “program or activity” means “all of the operations … of a college, university, or other postsecondary institution, or a public system of higher education.” See 42 U.S.C. § 2000d-4a(2)(A); Rowles v. Curators of the Univ. of Mo., 983 F.3d 345, 355 (8th Cir. 2020) (“Title VI prohibits discrimination on the basis of race in federally funded programs,” and thus applies to universities receiving federal financial assistance). As GVSU receives federal
funds, it is subject to Title VI.

 

Regardless of GVSU’s reasons for offering, promoting, and administering such discriminatory scholarships, GVSU is violating Title VI by doing so…

 

As GVSU is a public university, its offering, promoting, and administrating these discriminatory scholarships also violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College, 600 U.S. 181 (2023), the Supreme Court emphasized that “[e]liminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it …. The guarantee of equal protection cannot mean one thing when applied to one individual and something else when applied to a person of another color. If both are not accorded the same protection, then it is not equal.” Id. at 206 (cleaned up)…

 

Because GVSU’s racial and/or ethnicity-based requirements for these scholarships is presumptively invalid, and since there is no compelling government justification for such invidious discrimination, its use of such criteria violates state and federal civil rights statutes and constitutional equal protection guarantees.

Finally, EPP’s Complaint summarizes and requests OCR take action:

The Office for Civil Rights has the power and obligation to investigate GVSU’s role in creating, funding, promoting and administering these scholarships – and, given how many there are, to discern whether GVSU is engaging in such discrimination in its other activities – and to impose whatever remedial relief is necessary to hold it accountable for that unlawful conduct. This includes, if necessary, imposing fines, initiating administrative proceedings to suspend or terminate federal financial assistance and referring the case to the Department of Justice for judicial proceedings to enforce the rights of the United States under federal law. After all, “[t]he way to stop discrimination … is to stop discriminating[.]” [citation omitted]

 

Accordingly, we respectfully ask that the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights prioritize and expedite this complaint given the sheer number of discriminatory scholarships at GVSU reflecting a systematic disregard for Title VI, promptly open a formal investigation, impose such remedial relief as the law permits for the benefit of those who have been illegally excluded from GVSU’s various scholarships based on discriminatory criteria, and ensure that all ongoing and future scholarships and programming at GVSU comports with the Constitution and federal civil rights laws.

OCR is evaluating EPP’s Civil Rights Complaint for further action.