“Extremely Thankful” DOJ Taking Action Against Providence Schools “Educators of Color Loan Forgiveness Program”

“Extremely Thankful” DOJ Taking Action Against Providence Schools “Educators of Color Loan Forgiveness Program”

The U.S. Department of Justice has opened a civil rights investigation into the Providence Public School District (PPSD) and Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE)(which took over the failing district) over the Educator of Color Student Loan Forgiveness Program launched in conjunction with The Rhode Island Foundation.

We laid out the background in our prior post, DOJ Reportedly Opens Investigation Into Providence Schools Program Challenged By Equal Protection Project, noting that Breitbart News broke the story.

Since that post, the investigation has been covered by The Boston Globe (didn’t mention us), Providence ABC6 (didn’t mention us), Providence NBC10 (didn’t mention us), and WPRI12 (did mention us).

The case now has gone national with coverage at Fox News digital in an article [archive link] that spent much of the day highly positioned on the home page and generating over 2000 comments.

Here is an excerpt:

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has launched an investigation into a Rhode Island school district to determine whether its student loan forgiveness program for teachers discriminates against White applicants.

In a March 21 letter sent to Providence Public School District (PPSD) and the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE), the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Office announced an investigation into whether the district and education office’s employment practices — specifically a student loan forgiveness program — have engaged in racial discrimination against White teachers….

PPSD’s “Educator of Color Loan Forgiveness Program” offers student loan forgiveness for educators of color through a grant from a nonprofit, the Rhode Island Foundation.

Recipients can receive up to $25,000 of college loans forgiven once the teacher completes three consecutive years of teaching in the district. The eligibility requirements indicate recipients must “identify as Asian, Black, Indigenous, Latino, biracial, or multi-racial” and must have at least $5,000 in student loans to repay.

Legal Insurrection Foundation (LIF), a Rhode Island-based, nonprofit investigative and research group that fights discrimination in education, filed a complaint with the Department of Education in 2022, claiming that the district was engaged in an ongoing “practice of discrimination” by making this program only available to non-White applicants.

The group was unsuccessful in getting the Biden administration to take up the case, but was “thrilled” upon learning the Trump administration’s Justice Department would be investigating.

“It’s been almost two and almost two and a half years since we filed it,” Cornell Law School professor and LIF President William A. Jacobson told Fox News Digital.

“We followed up. It got transferred to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. We followed up with them repeatedly. We couldn’t get the Biden administration to do anything to stop this. And finally, the new Trump administration under the Department of Justice Civil Rights Office has brought an action. So we’re very pleased with that,” he added.

Jacobson said they were “extremely thankful” that the DOJ was taking action because the case had “no other place to go.”

“The Rhode Island attorney general could have brought suit here. There are Rhode Island laws that are being violated. But nothing was done. The political infrastructure in the state of Rhode Island unfortunately insulates powerful political and economic players from the rules that everyone else has to abide by,” he said.

“If this was just a private company doing this, probably the regulators would have gotten involved. Probably somebody would have been willing to sue. But because it’s the largest school district in the state, being run by the state Department of Education, funded by the largest charity in the state, I think they felt immunity from the rules everyone else has to abide by,” he continued.

Jacobson called the program an “outrageous” example of racial discrimination that would have caused a national uproar if it had favored White applicants.

“Can you imagine if a school district had a program only open to White teachers? It would be a national uproar,” he said. “But there seems to be an attitude that as long as the discrimination is against Whites, it’s lawful. But it’s not. The civil rights laws protect everybody equally. And that’s what we’re seeking here. ”

Jacobson said his group launched its Equal Protection Project, which focuses on combating racism and other equal protection violations, because of how “egregious” the PPSD program was.

The LIF is also calling on the Justice Department to investigate the nonprofit charity which funds the PPSD loan forgiveness program, the Rhode Island Foundation, alleging the nonprofit has been a “major funder of discrimination” in Rhode Island schools.

I also appeared on The Matt Allen Show, one of the most popular talk radio shows in Rhode Island:

[If player doesn’t load, click here]

Transcript Excerpt – auto-generated, may contain transcription errors, lightly edited for transcript clarity

WAJ (00:39):

Well, this was technically filed a couple of months before we formed equalprotect.org. So it it was under Legal Insurrection Foundation. And this is what caused us to launch Equal Protection Project because we got a tip, somebody contacted us about this Providence Teachers Program where you get up to 20, if you’re new into the system or recent into the system and you’re a teacher, the Rhode Island Foundation would help you pay off up to $25,000 of your student loans, but only if you’re non-white. And we looked at that and we said, that’s crazy. In fact, the name of the program is the Educator of Color Loan Forgiveness Program. It was initiated as a joint venture with the Rhode Island Foundation and the Providence Public School District. And that just struck, struck us as so outrageous that we filed the complaint initially with the off, uh, US Department of Education.

And they referred it to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, I presume, because they said this is a hiring practice. It’s not really an educational practice. And then it sat at EEOC for a couple of years and we would write them periodically, what’s going on? Why aren’t you looking into it? They did tell us they were looking into it. They said that they were seeking records from the district, but nothing ever happened with it. And then the Department of Justice, the US Department of Justice, who we’d never filed a complaint with, they must have taken it up for the EEOC, has opened a formal investigation. And I know that the school district’s trying to downplay it like an investigation doesn’t mean we’ve been found guilty. But that’s a big deal. They don’t open up investigations, and the Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Justice does not open these things unless they think there’s a basis….

They’ve opened an investigation through the Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Justice. And I forget the exact term they used, but it was something like a custom and practices investigation. So this is not an investigation where they think a single person was discriminated against. It’s a practices, it was a systemic discriminatory practice where white teachers into the system were treated less favorably than non-white teachers into the system. And they were not afforded the opportunity to even apply for this loan forgiveness. And that’s straight up racism.

I mean, racism is a term that’s overused, but when you say you can get this based on your race and you can’t get this based on your race, it’s despicable what the Providence Schools did and what the Rhode Island Foundation did. And I hope they’re gonna be held legally to account for it.

WAJ (04:20):

And in fact, if you read the press statements that the district has given to the Boston Globe, to local media and to Fox News, they’re totally defending this. They’re saying that we’re entitled to do this. I don’t think they are….

Allen (12:40):

… I’m pretty sure that Rhode Island Foundation has lawyers and that the, your legal argument against their involvement in this is, is at least thought of or has been looked at. I mean, what’s the theory here? We’re just gonna do it and get forgiven is nobody, because, you know, you have a friendly administration, nobody’s gonna bust your chop. It’s just gonna keep doing it. ’cause you know, diversity, equity and inclusion is like the religion of these people. So, you know, everybody’s gonna complain about this, us being in church here. So we just do it until somebody complains and we’ll see how it goes. I mean, that’s pretty much seems like the strategy here. Do you, do you assume that that’s what it is?

WAJ (13:19):

I assume that’s what it was with the Biden administration in, they probably figured they were untouchable. And I’m not sure they were wrong about that, even though they were doing something wrong.

For a foundation like the Rhode Island Foundation, whose corporate focus is DEI, who funds a lot of race-based programming around the state, whose president is a Democrat who was in Nancy Pelosi’s inner circle. David Cicilline, when he was in Congress, I think they felt invulnerable. I think they, whether they feel that way now,

I think they figured they’re the biggest charity in the state. They give money to just about everybody in the state, who’s going to challenge them, and the federal government’s on their side, because the Biden administration was all behind these sort of race-based initiatives. And so I think they must have looked at it and said, shrugged their shoulders and said, see you later. Who are these people complaining about us? They’re nothing to us.

And so, but now it’s a different administration. It’s an administration that hopefully is going to hold them to the law and hold them to their legal responsibilities. What that looks like, I don’t know, but I think the Rhode Island Foundation has legal exposure and they should have done the right thing here when we wrote to them and asked them to stop last summer. They should have stopped. And if they had stopped, I don’t think we’d be at this point now.

Allen (14:39):

Yeah. I mean what sort of lunatic will complain about such a case, about such a scholarship? Because then you’ll just be labeled with all kinds of -ism problems. And I guess that you and I are the only ones that, you specifically, but me tangentially here, that don’t have that gene that makes us afraid of that kind of thing, I guess <laugh>.

WAJ (14:59):

Yeah. I mean, it’s a crazy world wee live in where standing up for equal treatment of people without regard to race gets you accused

Allen (15:07):

Of racism, <laugh>

WAJ (15:08):

… by progressives of being racist. I mean, it’s crazy. It’s completely insane. But you know what, I think another factor here is they know, and the Providence School District knows, that nobody’s going to come forward and challenge them in a lawsuit. If we had a plaintiff, we would’ve been in federal court in a heartbeat for that very ….

***

WAJ (15:29):

… for that very. That’s right. Who’s going to challenge them in this state? What teacher is going to challenge them? They’ll never work again in this state. And I think that they knew that.

It’s the arrogance of power. You know, we’re in Rhode Island. We know about this. A smugness and an arrogance that comes from being in complete power in the state. I think they just felt they’re untouchable and they can do whatever they want. And the Democrats in Washington, when it was Biden, are on their side. The state apparatus is on their side. The teacher’s unions are on their side with this stuff. The school administrators are on their side. They’re untouchable.

It’s a different world now, though. They’re going to have to be held accountable, and I hope they are.

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