We Again Call On DOJ To Investigate The Rhode Island Foundation’s Role In Providence Schools’ Anti-White Teacher Program

We Again Call On DOJ To Investigate The Rhode Island Foundation’s Role In Providence Schools’ Anti-White Teacher Program

As reported yesterday, the EEOC Moved Against Providence Schools Over Discrimination Against White Teachers, After Years Of Effort By Equal Protection Project.

The bottom line is that the Providence Public School District (PPSD) is under investigation not only by the EEOC, but also by the U.S. Department of Justice for the “Educator of Color Loan Forgiveness Program” in which the Rhode Island Foundation (RIF) played an instrumental role in crafting and funding. But while PPSD is under formal investigation, RIF is not (to our knowledge).

I raise this issue back in February 2025, when I called for DOJ to investigate RIF – The Rhode Island Foundation’s Discriminatory Grantmaking Warrants Civil Rights Investigation.

Will RIF, run by former Congressman and House Floor Impeachment Manager against Trump, ever be held accountable? If not for RIF, the school district never could have or would have implemented this discriminator program.

So consider this another call from the Equal Protection Project for a civil rights investigation of the Rhode Island Foundation.

I had a chance to talk about that with popular radio host Matt Allen Show on WPRO in Providence. Matt has been a stand up guy, willing to have me on repeated to cover against a Rhode Island media cone of silence on the story. What amounts to the biggest racism scandal in Rhode Island in decades perpetrated by the largest charity through the largest public school district (which is run by the State Dept. of Education) gets a lot of national coverage, but almost no local coverage.

We have received substantial national media coverage, including a viral Fox News Digital story, but Rhode Island media is burying this story. Why is that?

Here’s my interview in which I cover the history of the racist program, the role of RIF, the media cone of silence, and much more.

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Partial Transcript (auto-generated, may contain transcription errors, lightly edited for transcript clarity)

Allen (00:30):

Joining us on line right now is Bill Jacobson from the Legal Insurrection Foundation to explain all this and remind us where we are here. Professor, how are you?

WAJ (00:39):

Good. Thanks for having me on.

Allen (00:40):

I appreciate you coming on. All right. So this is this, just to remind people of the story. This is  is a loan forgiveness program that if, was I correct, the money came from the Rhode Island Foundation, but was administered by the Providence Schools?

WAJ (00:52):

Yes. This was created, I think it was in 2021, but we filed our complaint in 2022, November, 2022. It’s a program created in conjunction with the Rhode Island Foundation, which provided the funding and the Providence Public School District, to recruit new teachers into the system by offering them an incentive. And the incentive was that the Rhode Island Foundation would pay off up to $25,000 of their student loans if they joined the Providence School District and stayed for a year or two. It was like a sliding scale, how long you stayed, or if you’re a new teacher into the system and have only been there a year or so, you can get this money too.

But there was one big catch, and they weren’t shy about it. It’s only available to educators of color, only to new teachers into the system, or recent teachers into the system who were non-white.

As you indicate, that’s completely outrageous. You don’t need to be a legal scholar to know you can’t do that. But the Providence City School District did it. They did it in conjunction with the largest charity in the state. And remember, the district is run by the state of Rhode Island.  So they were a participant in it.

And there has been a complete or nearly complete media cone of silence about this. You are really, and I hand it to you, you’re really the one who’s given air to this. GoLocalProv did have a story today about it, so good for them. But the rest of Rhode Island media wants nothing to do with what, in my estimation is the single largest racism scandal in recent decades in the State of Rhode Island, where you have the powers in the state, the largest charity, the largest school district, the State Department of Education, which runs the largest school district, openly discriminating against white teachers.

It’s outrageous. So the Department of Justice last March, and I think that’s when I was last on your show about it, the US Department of Justice has opened an investigation and just recently, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued what they call a “final determination,” finding reasonable cause to believe there was a violation of the Civil Rights laws. That’s simply the language they use to move the process along. The next step will be if it’s not resolved with the city, with the school district, then they can move to suit. So they have to issue that finding.

Allen (03:21):

Now, last thing I heard, we’d spoken, you had taken this to the Department of Education, Civil Rights Division, was it not? Was that what the, you’d taken it, then they, did they move it over to Equal Opportunity Office? Is that what happened?

WAJ (03:33):

Yes. So when we filed in November, 2022, the Department of Education, which was the Biden administration, made a formal referral to the EEOC because they, even though I think they had jurisdiction, because the district gets feeral Department of Education money, they viewed this more as an employment practice than an educational practice. And so they moved it over to EEOC.

The EEOC has now acted on it in a very significant way. That finding of a “final determination” of reasonable cause to believe there was a violation is legally extremely significant because it allows them to then go to the next step in the process.

***

[commercials]

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[discussion of EPP’s complaint against the University of Rhode Island]

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Allen (07:52):

… So on the teacher issue, you’ve probably been largely ignored, right? Because I remember at the time, didn’t you write a letter to the Rhode Island Foundation and to the Province School District and, and bring this up to, you know, to bring it to their attention. And, and I don’t think any, did you ever get any response?

WAJ (08:10):

No. So we filed a complaint against the Providence School District …. So we didn’t write a second letter to the district. We filed a complaint, which they got a copy of. But we did write in, I think it was just about a year ago now, we wrote to David Cicilline at the Rhode Island Foundation at the Rhode Island Foundation. And we said, hey, you know about our complaint. Your prior chief executive has defended it. Uou are here now. Here’s why it’s illegal. Here’s why a dozen of your scholarships are illegal that are discriminating on the basis of race. Please stop. You know, why are you doing this?

We never got a response because I guess we’re just not important enough.

When a little tiny little nonprofit in Rhode Island that sends a letter to the biggest nonprofit in Rhode Island, biggest charity in Rhode Island with a billion and a half dollars in assets completely politically connected. They just ignored us.

Now they’re not going to ignore us anymore because I’ve publicly urged before and I publicly urge now the Department of Justice to look at the Rhode Island Foundation, to investigate it. Because just because they’re a charity doesn’t mean they get to create, fund, and help implement a racially discriminatory program in a public school district.

They are just like anybody else. So I’m hoping that will be the next thing. I have no idea if it will. I have no information that it will, but I’m hoping that the Department of Justice will look at the Rhode Island Foundation’s behavior here.

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[commercials]

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Allen (10:42):

We’re talking to Bill Jacobson, who’s a Cornell Law professor, but also founder of Legal Insurrection Foundation, where they filed complaints through the organization, it’s equalprotect.org. Right? That’s the organization that you use to look to, to battle these, these types of discriminatory scholarships, and loan forgiveness programs….

***

[discussion of the law on discriminatory donating and the Fearless Fund case]

***

WAJ (14:26):

… And, you know, the Rhode Island Foundation, every time I look at it, it’s like, what are they doing here? I mean, this is sophisticated organization with lawyers, okay. And law firms and all sorts of, you know, prominent people on their board. How is it you did not recognize that running a program in the Providence School District that discriminates on the basis of, of race is not only illegal, but just wrong? How did they not see that?

Allen (15:34):

Well, I would imagine they probably did, but as you mentioned, you and I are the only ones who talk about it. So they, they’re like, they don’t count on Bill Jacobson and his Legal Insurrection Foundation in Barrington, Rhode Island, you know, making it stink. And they don’t, and they don’t care that Matt Allen puts Bill Jacobson on the phone and talks about it, or that Fox News covers it.

Nobody in Rhode Island will cover it. They seem so far, they haven’t, channel 10, 12 and 6, as far as I know, haven’t covered it. The Providence Journal, I don’t think has covered it. So it seems like they can do whatever they want because what politician’s going to come out and say it’s wrong.

WAJ (16:09):

And that’s why I think it was necessary for the Department of Justice and the EEOC to get involved. Because they’re not subject to the political powers of the State of Rhode Island.

It is truly amazing. Where is the Rhode Island Attorney General? He’s probably heard me on your show, or he at least knows about the controversy. I’d be shocked if he didn’t, or at least somebody in his department didn’t know about it. Why haven’t they taken enforcement action? You’ve got major players in this state openly discriminating on the basis of race that not only violates federal law, it violates state law, where has the Attorney General’s office been?

Where has the Providence Teachers Union been? They have a duty of fair representation to their members. How is it that they know that this is going on, that some of their members, maybe even a majority of their members are being discriminated against on the basis of race. And the Providence Teachers Union does nothing. They have to know about this.

This is a cone of silence in the state to uphold an openly, racially discriminatory program in the Providence School District. And let’s face it, the reason they get away with it is they have all bought in to the critical race theory, diversity, equity and inclusion, quasi religion, which says this is okay, as long as the people you’re discriminating against are of a certain race that it’s okay. But it’s not okay. It’s not okay morally, and it’s not okay legally. And I’m glad the feds are getting involved.

Allen (17:34):

Professor, thank you for the time. I greatly appreciate it. We’ll keep in touch and obviously always let me know whenever there’s a development in this.

WAJ (17:40):

Great. Take care.

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