Case Particulars

Tribunal

Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights

Date Filed

March 4, 2025

Docket No.

N/A

Case Status

OCR Complaint Filed

Case Overview

On March 4, 2025, the Equal Protection Project (EPP) filed a Civil Rights Complaint against the University of Oregon (UO) with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) “regarding four (4) scholarships that discriminate based on race, color, national origin, and/or sex.” The Complaint explains that “such discrimination violates Title VI and Title IX, respectively, and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution.”

The Complaint then uses UO’s own website to show that each of the four scholarships at issue does, in fact, discriminate on the basis of race and/or sex.

The Complaint then explains why the scholarships violate Title VI and/or Title IX, and the United States Constitution:

The scholarships identified above violate either Title VI, by discriminating on the basis of race, skin color, or national origin, or Title IX, by discriminating on the basis of sex. Furthermore, because UO 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. § 2000d4a(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 UO receives and administers federal funds through numerous programs and is a public institution, 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)…

 

As UO 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 that OCR take action:

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

 

The Office for Civil Rights has the power and obligation to investigate UO’s 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 to promptly open a formal investigation, impose such remedial relief as the law permits for the benefit of those who have been illegally excluded from UO’s various scholarships based on discriminatory criteria, and ensure that all ongoing and future scholarships and programming at UO comports with the Constitution and federal civil rights laws.

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