Case Particulars

Tribunal

Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights

Date Filed

April 1, 2025

Docket No.

OCR Case Number 03-25-0220

Case Status

OCR Complaint Filed

Case Overview

On April 1, 2025, the Equal Protection Project (EPP) filed a Civil Rights Complaint against the Pennsylvania College of Technology (Penn Tech) with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) “for offering, administering, and promoting twelve (12) scholarships that discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, and/or sex in violation of Title VI and Title IX, respectively.”

The Complaint continues:

The scholarships listed below are currently offered to Penn Tech students and applicants for admission, according to the Penn Tech website, and violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VI”) and its implementing regulations by excluding students based on their race, color, or national origin, and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (“Title IX”) and its implementing regulations by excluding students based on their sex, or both. Because Penn Tech is a public university, these discriminatory scholarships also violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The Complaint then uses Penn Tech’s own website to show the discriminatory nature of each of the challenged scholarships.

Next the Complaint explains how the challenged scholarships violate federal civil rights laws and the U.S. Constitution:

Title VI 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” encompasses “all of the operations … of a college, university, or other postsecondary institution, or a public system of higher education.” See 42 U.S.C. § 2000d4a(2)(A). As noted in Rowles v. Curators of the University of Missouri, 983 F.3d 345, 355 (8th Cir. 2020), “Title VI prohibits discrimination on the basis of race in federally funded programs,” and therefore applies to universities receiving federal financial assistance. Because Penn Tech
receives and administers federal funds through numerous programs and is a public institution, it is subject to Title VI…

 

Title IX prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in education. The statute provides: “[n]o person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” 20 U.S.C. § 1681(a). Accordingly, a school receiving federal funding may not administer scholarships, fellowships, or other forms of financial assistance that impose preferences or restrictions based on sex, except in limited exceptions that are not applicable here. See 34 C.F.R. § 106.37(a)…

 

As Penn Tech is a public university, its offering, promoting, and administering 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 declared 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). “Distinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry [including race] are by their very nature odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality.” Id. at 208. Consequently, “[a]ny exception to the Constitution’s demand for equal protection must survive a daunting two-step examination known … as strict scrutiny.” Id. at 208 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). The scholarships at issue here cannot withstand that exacting standard.

 

As OCR stated in its February 14, 2025, Civil Rights Guidance Letter:

 

Although SFFA addressed admissions decisions, the Supreme Court’s holding applies more broadly. At its core, the test is simple: If an educational institution treats a person of one race differently than it treats another person because of that person’s race, the educational institution violates the law. Federal law thus prohibits covered entities from using race in decisions pertaining to admissions, hiring, promotion, compensation, financial aid, scholarships, prizes, administrative support, discipline, housing, graduation ceremonies, and all other aspects of student, academic, and campus life. Put simply, educational institutions may neither separate or segregate students based on race, nor distribute benefits or burdens based on race…

The Complaint then summarizes and requests that OCR take action:

Penn Tech’s explicit race- and sex-based scholarships are presumptively invalid, and since there is no compelling government justification for such invidious discrimination, Penn Tech’s offering, promotion, and administration of these programs violates state and federal civil rights statutes and constitutional equal protection guarantees…

 

The Office for Civil Rights has the power and obligation to investigate Penn Tech’s role in creating, funding, promoting and administering these scholarships – and, given how many there are, to discern whether Penn Tech 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…

 

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 Penn Tech reflecting a systematic disregard for Titles VI and IX, promptly open a formal investigation, impose such remedial relief as the law permits for the benefit of those who have been illegally excluded from Penn Tech’s various scholarships based on discriminatory criteria, and ensure that all ongoing and future scholarships and programming at Penn Tech comports with the Constitution and federal civil rights laws.

OCR is evaluating EPP’s Complaint for further action.