{"id":9708,"date":"2026-01-22T03:01:37","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T03:01:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/department-of-education-announces-investigations-at-over-50-universities-for-alleged-use-of-racial-preferences\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T03:01:37","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T03:01:37","slug":"department-of-education-announces-investigations-at-over-50-universities-for-alleged-use-of-racial-preferences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/department-of-education-announces-investigations-at-over-50-universities-for-alleged-use-of-racial-preferences\/","title":{"rendered":"Department of Education Announces Investigations at Over 50 Universities For Alleged Use of Racial Preferences"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div id=\"contentSummaryCollapse\" style=\"--intro-p-height: 10.3125rem;\">\n<div class=\"inner-collapse\">\n<p>On March 14, 2025, the U.S. Department of Education <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ed.gov\/about\/news\/press-release\/office-civil-rights-initiates-title-vi-investigations-institutions-of-higher-education-0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">announced<\/a>\u00a052 investigations into universities for the alleged use of racial preferences and stereotypes in potential violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The announcement follows a February 14, 2025 \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.ed.gov\/media\/document\/dear-colleague-letter-sffa-v-harvard-109506.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Dear Colleague<\/a>\u201d letter from the Department of Education, which asserted that \u201cAmerican educational institutions have discriminated against students on the basis of race . . . . [and] embrace[d] . . . pervasive and repugnant race-based preferences . . . throughout every facet of academia.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"ql-align-center\" style=\"text-align: center;\">*\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0*\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0*<\/p>\n<p>The March 14 announcement explains that the Department of Education has \u201copened investigations into 45 universities under Title VI\u201d for \u201callegedly engaging in race-exclusionary practices in their graduate programs.\u201d According to the Department of Education, these schools allegedly \u201cviolated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act (1964) by partnering with \u2018The Ph.D. Project,\u2019 an organization that purports to provide doctoral students with insights into obtaining a Ph.D. and networking opportunities, but limits eligibility based on the race of participants.\u201d The Department of Education also announced investigations into seven universities for \u201calleged impermissible race-based scholarships and race-based segregation.\u201d Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a statement, \u201c[T]oday\u2019s announcement expands our efforts to ensure universities are not discriminating against their students based on race and race stereotypes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Although the Department of Education announcement applies only to universities, employers should continue to follow these political and legal developments, as they may provide insight into the current administration\u2019s enforcement priorities, including with respect to diversity and inclusion practices at private sector employers.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On March 14, 2025, the U.S. Department of Education announced\u00a052 investigations into universities for the alleged use of racial preferences and stereotypes in potential violation of Title VI [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9709,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[460,1444,462,1024,6635,7384,2041,2413],"class_list":["post-9708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-alleged","tag-announces","tag-department","tag-education","tag-investigations","tag-preferences","tag-racial","tag-universities"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}