EXCLUSIVE — Two education watchdogs, Defending Education and Do No Harm, filed a joint complaint with the Justice Department’s Office of Civil Rights on Thursday, alleging that Oregon has illegally considered race in its education funding policies.
The Oregon Department of Education requires that 65% of a charter school’s student body be from a minority group or disabled to qualify for a Charter School Equity Grant. The state’s Higher Education Coordinating Commission also distributes funding to Oregon’s public universities according to the number of minority students who graduate.
“Oregon’s use of student racial demographics to allocate public funding for K-12 schools and universities is immoral and violates the Constitution and federal antidiscrimination law,” Dr. Kurt Miceli, Chief Medical Officer of Do No Harm, told the Washington Examiner. “Political activists have long pushed institutions to support equity over equality, and Oregon’s system of race-based funding to remedy vague claims of ‘societal discrimination’ is a clear example.”
The charter school grant program was allocated over $4 million in Gov. Tina Kotek’s (D-OR) budget for the years 2025 to 2027 to support eight schools, while the public university fund is set to manage over $1 billion for the same period.
All organizations that receive federal funding are obligated to follow Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination “on the ground of race, color, or national origin.” The Oregon Education Department receives more than $150 million annually in federal funding, and the higher education commission similarly benefits from federal grants and student financial aid programs.
“Last December, the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel analyzed similar race-based federal education grants in light of Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and determined that most of those programs unconstitutionally discriminated based on race,” the complaint read.
The Justice Department had advised the Education Department that preexisting federal education funding programs violated Title VI, according to the agency’s interpretation of the law following the Supreme Court decision.
The 6-3 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard found that the consideration of race in college admissions was illegal under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. In May, the DOJ accused Yale’s medical school of violating federal law by using race-based admission policies despite the 2023 court decision.
“Those programs were like Oregon’s Equity Grant program in both form and function,” the letter continued. “In fact, many of the programs that the Acting Attorney General deemed unconstitutional had quotas that required only a fraction of Oregon’s 65% enrollment threshold.”
DOJ SUES UCLA FOR FOSTERING ‘HOSTILE’ ANTISEMITIC ENVIRONMENT FOR JEWISH AND ISRAELI STUDENTS
“For these reasons, Defending Education and Do No Harm respectfully ask OCR to open a civil rights investigation into Oregon’s Department of Education and Oregon’s Higher Education Coordinating Commission and to resolve any violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause,” the complaint concluded.
The complaint signals to the DOJ that Oregon’s education funding may be worth investigating. It is now up to the department’s Office of Civil Rights to pursue an investigation if it deems the complaint significant.