Case Particulars

Tribunal

Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights

Date Filed

April 8, 2025

Docket No.

OCR Case Number 05-25-2308

Case Status

OCR Complaint Filed

Case Overview

On April 8, 2025, the Equal Protection Project (EPP) filed a Civil Rights Complaint against DePaul University (DePaul) with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) “for discrimination in six (6) scholarships based on race, color, national origin, or sex in violation of Title VI and Title IX, respectively.”

The Complaint continues:

The scholarships listed below are currently active and being administered to DePaul students, according to the DePaul 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, or Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (“Title IX”) and its implementing regulations by excluding students based on their sex[.]

The Complaint then uses DePaul’s own website to explain the discriminatory nature of each of the six scholarships at issue.

Next, the Complaint explains how DePaul’s six discriminatory scholarships violate civil rights laws:

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 DePaul receives federal funds, 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).

The Complaint then summarizes and requests OCR take action:

DePaul’s explicit race, color, national origin, and/or sex-based scholarships are presumptively invalid; DePaul’s offering, promotion, and administration of these programs violates federal civil rights statutes…

 

The Office for Civil Rights has the power and obligation to investigate DePaul’s role in creating, funding, promoting and administering these scholarships as well as the duty to impose whatever remedial relief is necessary to hold it accountable for this 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. v. Seattle Sch. Dist. No. 1, 551 U.S. 701, 748 (2007).

 

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 DePaul’s various scholarships based on discriminatory criteria, and ensure that all ongoing and future scholarships and programming at DePaul comports with the federal civil rights laws.

OCR is evaluating EPP’s Complaint for further action.