Case Particulars

Tribunal

Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights

Date Filed

April 17, 2025

Docket No.

N/A

Case Status

OCR Complaint Filed

Case Overview

On April 17, 2025, the Equal Protection Project (EPP) filed a Civil Rights Complaint against the University of South Carolina (USC) with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) “for offering, administering, and promoting five (5) scholarships that discriminate based on race, color, and/or national origin.”

The Complaint continues:

The scholarships listed below are currently offered to USC students and applicants for admission, according to the USC website, and violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VI”) and its implementing regulations by discriminating against students based on their race, color, and/or national origin. Because USC 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 is currently active.

The Complaint then uses USC’s own website to explain the discriminatory nature of each scholarship.

Next, the Complaint explains why these scholarships violate federal law and the U.S. Constitution:

The scholarships identified above violate Title VI by discriminating on the basis of race, color, and/or national origin. Furthermore, because USC is a public university, such discrimination also violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

 

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 USC receives federal
funds, it is subject to Title VI…

 

As USC is a public university, its offering, promoting, and administrating these discriminatory scholarships also violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment…

 

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 OCR take action:

Because USC’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…

 

The Office for Civil Rights has the power and obligation to investigate USC’s role in creating, funding, promoting and administering these scholarships – and, given how many there are, to discern whether USC 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 promptly open a formal investigation, impose such remedial relief as the law permits for the benefit of those who have been illegally excluded from USC’s various scholarships based on discriminatory criteria, and ensure that all ongoing and future scholarships and programming at USC comports with the Constitution and federal civil rights laws.

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