Case Particulars

Tribunal

Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights

Date Filed

October 30, 2025

Docket No.

N/A

Case Status

OCR Complaint Filed

Case Overview

On October 30, 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 University of California, Irvine for and its Samueli School of Engineering, “for adopting and promoting an unlawful racial minimum quota goal tied to statewide demographic targets.”

EPP’s Complaint continues:

The racial quota initiative violates Title VI, by discriminating on the basis of race, skin color, or national origin through minimum racial quota targets.4 Furthermore, because UCI is a public university, such racial quota initiative also violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Complaint uses University of California, Irvine’s own websites to demonstrate the discriminatory nature of the programs.

Next, the Complaint further explains why the initiative challenged violates federal law:

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. § 2000d-4a(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…

 

Regardless of UCI/SSoE’s reasons for offering, promoting, and administering such a discriminatory initiative, they are violating Title VI by doing so. It does not matter if the recipient of federal funding discriminates in order to advance a benign “intention” or “motivation.” Bostock v. Clayton Cnty., 590 U.S. 644, 661 (2020) (“Intentionally burning down a neighbor’s house is arson, even if the perpetrator’s ultimate intention (or motivation) is only to improve the view.”); accord Automobile Workers v. Johnson Controls, Inc., 499 U.S. 187, 199 (1991) (“the absence of a malevolent motive does not convert a facially discriminatory policy into a neutral policy with a discriminatory effect” or “alter [its] intentionally discriminatory character”). “Nor does it matter if the recipient discriminates against an individual member of a protected class with the idea that doing so might favor the interests of that class as a whole or otherwise promote equality at the group level.” Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard Coll., 600 U.S. 181, 289 (2023) (Gorsuch, J., concurring).

 

As UCI is a public university, its offering, promoting, and administering this racial quota initiative through SSoE also violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. In Students for Fair Admissions, 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 initiative at issue here cannot withstand that exacting standard.

Finally, the Complaint then requests that OCR take action:

The Office for Civil Rights has the power and obligation to investigate UCI/SSoE’s role in creating, funding, promoting and administering this initiative and, to discern whether UCI and SSoE are 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[.]” Parents Involved in Cmty. Sch., 551 U.S. at 748.

 

Accordingly, we respectfully request that the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights promptly open a formal investigation, impose all appropriate remedial measures authorized by law to address the discriminatory quota system at UCI/SSoE, and ensure that all current and future initiatives and programs fully comply with Title VI, the Equal Protection Clause, and other applicable federal civil rights guarantees.