Case Particulars

Tribunal

Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights

Date Filed

August 1, 2025

Docket No.

N/A

Case Status

OCR Complaint Filed

Case Overview

On August 1, 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 Rutgers University (Rutgers) “for discrimination in four (4) scholarships based on race, color, or national origin, in violation of Title VI.”

The Complaint continues:

The scholarships listed below are currently offered to Rutgers students and applicants for admission, according to the Rutgers 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 or national origin. Because Rutgers is a public university, these discriminatory scholarships also violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The Complaint next uses Rutgers’ own website to demonstrate the discriminatory nature of each of the challenged scholarships.

The Complaint then explains why these scholarships violate federal law:

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

 

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. Because Rutgers receives and administers federal funds through numerous programs, it is subject to Title VI.

 

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

 

As Rutgers is a public university, its offering, promoting, and administering these discriminatory scholarships also violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Complaint then summarizes and requests OCR take action:

Because the discrimination outlined above is presumptively illegal, and since Rutgers cannot show any compelling government justification for it, the fact that it conditions eligibility for multiple scholarships on race, color, or national origin violates federal civil rights statutes and constitutional equal protection guarantees.

 

The Office for Civil Rights has the power and obligation to investigate Rutgers’ role in creating, funding, promoting and administering these scholarships 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 Rutgers’ various scholarships based on discriminatory criteria, and ensure that all ongoing and future scholarships and programming at Rutgers comports with the Constitution and federal civil rights laws.

OCR is evaluating EPP’s Complaint for further action.