Case Particulars

Tribunal

Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights

Date Filed

December 11, 2024

Docket No.

N/A

Case Status

OCR Complaint Filed

Case Overview

On December 11, 2024, the Equal Protection Project (EPP) filed a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) against the University of Rhode Island (URI) for “offering, promoting and administering fifty-one (51) student scholarships that discriminate based on race and/or sex.” The complaint notes that the “discrimination is so pervasive and systematic that urgent action by OCR is needed before the scholarships come up for reapplication in the spring 2025 semester.”

EPP’s complaint notes that URI offers 23 scholarships that violate Title VI (race-based discrimination), 23 scholarships that violate Title IX (sex-based discrimination), and five scholarships that violate both Title VI and Title IX, and uses URI’s own website to show the discriminatory nature of each scholarship.

The complaint then explains why Title VI, Title IX, and the United States Constitution have been violated:

Those scholarships identified above that discriminate on the basis of race, skin color or national origin violate Title VI, while those that discriminate on the basis of sex violate Title IX, and those that discriminate on both grounds violate both Title VI and Title IX. And, because URI is a public university, such discrimination also violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment [of the United States 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. Likewise, Title IX makes it unlawful for any to discriminate on the basis of sex in education. That statute provides that “[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).

 

The term “program or activity” means “all of the operations of … a department, agency, special purpose district, or other instrumentality of a State or of a local government” and each state government agency “to which the assistance is extended.” 42 U.S.C. § 2000d-4a(1)(A), (B). It does not matter that a particular program may be considered “extracurricular” or just a “club” or “group,” the same considerations apply, as OCR noted in its 2023 Guidance on Race and School Programming. As URI receives federal funds, it is subject to both Title VI and Title IX…

 

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

 

As URI is a public university, its offering, promoting, and administrating these discriminatory scholarships 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.” “Distinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry [and race and sex] are by their very nature odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality.”

 

* * *

 

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

EPP’s complaint then requests OCR take action:

The Office for Civil Rights has the power and obligation to investigate URI’s role in creating, funding, promoting and administering these scholarships – and, given how many there are, to discern whether URI 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. After all, “[t]he way to stop discrimination … is to stop discriminating[.]”

 

Indeed, URI appears to admit that there is a strong likelihood that several of its discriminatory scholarships are unlawful – because in its descriptions of such scholarships URI notes that “if such an award would not otherwise comply with applicable law, then the scholarship shall go to a student with demonstrated financial need and in good standing from a historically underrepresented population at the University.” This reflects both a consciousness of guilt on the part of URI and a callous disregard for federal anti-discrimination laws and URI’s constitutional obligations. This highlights the urgent need for OCR to conduct an investigation and put an end to this misconduct before the spring 2025 reapplication period begins.

 

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

OCR is evaluating EPP’s civil rights complaint against URI for further action.