DOJ Sues Providence Schools Over Anti-White Teacher Program Challenged by Equal Protection Project
“To me it’s the most open and shut case you can get, which is why it’s so amazing that everybody in the establishment in Rhode Island thumbed their noses at us, refused to listen to us, refused to even respond to us…. and now it’s going forward in court, and I’m thrilled.”
You may remember the Educator of Color Loan Forgiveness Program in the Providence Public School District (PPSD), created and funded in conjunction with the Rhode Island Foundation (RIF), the largest charity in the state. The program provided for RIF to pay off up to $25,000 of student loans for new and recently hired teachers in PPSD, but only if they were non-white. White teachers were excluded.
In November 2022, Legal Insurrection Foundation filed a complaint at the U.S. Department of Education, which referred the case to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). We followed up with an EEOC Charge of Diserimination about this clearly racist program. LIF together with the later formed Equal Protection Project have been pushing forward ever since.
Our Case Page has the history and pleadings of this case.
After almost three years of advocating for government action and multiple filings, it’s all coming together. The DOJ opened an investigation in March 2025, and in late July 2025 the EEOC issued a “Final Determination” that there was “reasonable cause” to believe PPSD violated the civil rights laws. We noted at the time that the Final Determination was “a necessary step on the road to what may be a federal court lawsuit by DOJ if ‘conciliation’ efforts fail.”
And so it has come to pass. Earlier today the DOJ filed a lawsuit in federal court in Providence seeking a permanent injunction plus other relief, including compensation for white teachers exclused From the DOJ Press Release:
The Department of Justice filed a lawsuit today against the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) and the Providence Public School District (PPSD) over their “Educators of Color Loan Forgiveness Program” (Program) through which new PPSD teachers who identify as “teachers of color” can receive up to $25,000 in student loan forgiveness while only white teachers are excluded from the Program.
In its complaint, the United States alleges that RIDE and PPSD established the Program in 2021, in partnership with the Rhode Island Foundation (RIF), a publicly supported non-profit organization, to provide $3,175,000 in student loan forgiveness to “teachers of color” over at least five years. The Program is described as an “incentive” to “encourage teachers of color” to teach at PPSD and obliges PPSD to “recruit and retain up to 127 teachers of color” during that period. Under the Program, “Teachers of color” includes teachers “who identify as Black, Hispanic, Asian, American Indian, and/or 2 or more races” and excludes only white teachers. In its complaint, the United States alleges that this race-based exclusion is a pattern or practice of discrimination of PPSD teachers who do not identify as “teachers of color” in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended. The complaint asks the court to declare that the Program discriminates on the basis of race, to enter a permanent injunction against RIDE and PPSD stopping them from implementing the Program or any similar race-based program, and to award equitable relief to PPSD teachers who were not eligible for the Program solely because of their race.
“While assisting new teachers in paying off their student loans may be a worthy cause, such a benefit of employment simply cannot be granted or withheld on the basis of the teachers’ race,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “We will not tolerate such plainly prohibited discrimination in employment.”
This case stems from an investigation launched by the Employment Litigation Section of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division.
The Complaint is embedded at the bottom of this post:
The United States brings this action to stop the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) and Providence Public School District (PPSD) from discriminating against teachers based on their race in violation of federal law. Through PPSD’s “Educators of Color Loan Forgiveness Program” (Program), new teachers can receive student-loan repayments up to $25,000. The catch: white teachers are not eligible. By its own terms, the purpose of the Program is to aid PPSD’s efforts to recruit a more “diverse” faculty. But in doing so, RIDE and PPSD engage in blatant race discrimination, which federal law has long prohibited.
The Program is a joint effort between PPSD, RIDE, and the Rhode Island Foundation (RIF). In 2019, RIDE took over management of PPSD, including the administration of PPSD’s faculty incentive programs. In 2021, RIDE and PPSD partnered with RIF, a publicly supported non-profit, to fund the Program to recruit more non-white teachers to the district. The Program opened applications to all newly hired non-white PPSD teachers with at least $5,000 in student debt.
This is race discrimination in public employment, pure and simple. The agreement with RIF requires PPSD to create the Program application, review application submissions, and approve teachers for participation in the Program. RIF merely writes the checks. Loan forgiveness available only to PPSD teachers is plainly a “privilege” and “opportunity” of employment within the district. And RIDE and PPSD are intimately involved with distributing this benefit to preferred employees based on their race.
Helping new teachers pay off their student loans may be a worthy endeavor for public school districts. But excluding white teachers is racist and unlawful. RIDE and PPSD’s exclusionary Program constitutes a pattern or practice of race discrimination in public employment, which violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e, et seq. (Title VII). The United States brings this action to end the unlawful Program and ensure that RIDE and PPSD stop racially discriminating against public school teachers.
Rhode Island is now about to learn what it means to insist on racial discrimination in 2025 (hint: white teachers have equal rights in America. https://t.co/WB2m6nyEji
— Harmeet K. Dhillon (@HarmeetKDhillon) September 16, 2025
The lawsuit has received widespread local and national coverage, including WJAR NBC News 10, WPRI News 12, The Boston Globe, Reuters, Education Week, and The Providence Journal.
(added) Fox News also covered the case:
In a Tuesday statement to Fox News Digital, William Jacobson, Cornell law professor and founder of the Equal Protection Project, said he is glad the DOJ is pursuing legal action against a program he calls “racist.”
“The Equal Protection Project of the Rhode Island non-profit Legal Insurrection Foundation applauds the U.S. Department of Justice filing suit in federal court regarding the clearly racist Educator of Color Loan Forgiveness Program that ran in the Providence Public School District,” Jacobson said.
“The case arises out of a civil rights complaint originally filed at the U.S. Department of Education by the Legal Insurrection Foundation and pursued for over two years by the foundation and its Equal Protection Project,” Jacobson added. “The Educator of Color Program was created in cooperation with the Rhode Island Foundation, and openly discriminated against White teachers. We hope that the responsible parties will be held legally accountable, and that the role of the Rhode Island Foundation will be the subject of further legal efforts by DOJ.”
I also appeared on the Matt Allen Show on WPRO-AM, one of the largest stations in the region. Matt has had me on multiple times since the start of the case to talk about it.
[If player doesn’t load, click here]
(Partial Transcript Auto-Generated, may contain transcription errors, lightly edited for transcript clarity)
MA (00:53):
Remind me of the history of this professor and the involvement of your organization.
WAJ (00:59):
Sure. Well, the current lawsuit by the Department of Justice is almost three years after we first brought this to attention. We filed a complaint in November– we being the Legal Insurrection Foundation, a Barrington-based nonprofit, and our Equal Protection Project. We filed a complaint with the Department of Education in November of 2022. It worked its way through various bureaucracies, [it] didn’t get a lot of attention and action by the Biden administration. But in March of this year, the Trump Department of Justice opened an investigation. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) separately has issued recently, and I think I might have been on your show about it, a finding of discrimination. Now it’s a federal court lawsuit, so it’s been almost three years that we’ve been screaming about this program. The Providence Public Schools couldn’t care less about our complaints.
The Rhode Island Foundation– which fomented this whole thing and funded it– couldn’t care less about our complaints. But now I think they’re going to care because the Department of Justice is in federal court in Providence seeking injunctive relief as well as monetary relief. So, you know, I will take some credit for this. I mean, this is for three years we’ve been pursuing this, and the establishment in Rhode Island couldn’t care less that its largest school district had an organized racially discriminatory program against white teachers funded by the largest charity in the state. So, all of the establishment in Rhode Island wanted to squelch this thing, and it’s not squelched, and now it’s going forward in court, and I’m thrilled.
MA (02:50):
Yeah. And this has been a concerted effort for this kind of thing; from the Trump administration–specifically, the Assistant Attorney General, Harmeet Dhillon–she’s, I think, in charge of this. She’s in-part in charge–and correct me if I’m wrong–she’s in charge of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice right now.
WAJ (03:04):
That’s my understanding. Yeah.
MA (03:06):
I think that’s correct. So, in this case, I mean, this seems to me, if this goes to a court, professor, you’re obviously the attorney and the law professor here. You tell me; I mean, this is open and shut it seems like.
WAJ (03:18):
To me it’s the most open and shut case you can get, which is why it’s so amazing that everybody in the establishment in Rhode Island thumbed their nose at us, refused to listen to us, refused to even respond to us.
Now, you have a program which in writing discriminates against teachers based on their race and ethnicity. It is as open and shut as you can get, and I think one of the questions that needs to be asked is, where were the people in Rhode Island? Where was the Rhode Island Attorney General? Where was the governor? Where, because, you know, the Providence School District is now run by the state, where were the state education officials? Where were all these people when there was a legal complaint by us–multiple legal complaints by us– multiple media appearances mostly on your show, because you’re the only local media that’s really given attention to this, and I thank you for that. [But] where were all these people in Rhode Island who were screaming all the time about racism? They’re screaming all the time about, you know, equity. Where were they when their largest school district was openly [and] racially discriminating against teachers? They were nowhere to be found. Because you know what? They support this. They support racism as long as it’s against whites. But that’s not good enough. The law protects everybody.
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MA (05:40):
… What is the remedy of this besides ending the program? Do they have to pay money to people? How does this work?
WAJ (06:17):
Yeah, they might have to, and in fact, in the complaint filed by the Department of Justice, they specifically request [a] compensation plan for the teachers who were excluded from this program. I think they said, and I presume this is based on their subpoenaing of records, that 451 white teachers were hired in Providence during this several year period that the program has been running. And they say the program is still running, so it’s still in existence. And that they’re probably going to have to set up a compensation fund that, you know, much like you often see in these mass tort sort of cases, people will be able to submit claims. I hope that’s the end result.
I hope the State of Rhode Island and the Providence Public School District have to write big checks to the teachers who were excluded from this. And I hope that’s the end result. And that’s what they say they’re seeking.
***
MA (08:22):
Is there an exposure here for the Rhode Island Foundation in your mind? From a legal standpoint? They don’t seem to be named in this as far as I can tell.
WAJ (08:30):
Well, they’re not named in this. And as you know, I’ve been on your show before.
WAJ (08:35):
One of the main culprits here, possibly the main culprit here, is the Rhode Island Foundation. I mean, they’re the ones who entered into this project with the Providence schools. And they should have, in my mind, culpability here for creating and funding a racially discriminatory program in a public school district. I don’t think that the mere fact that they’re a charity gets them off the hook. I think that they’re, you know, I don’t know, the legal theories might be different because they didn’t employ these people; they didn’t directly discriminate against the teachers. But I’ve urged publicly many times, including on your show, that I hope the Department of Justice takes action against the Rhode Island Foundation because they are in many ways the real culprit here.
Reminder: we are a small organization going up against powerful and wealthy government and private institutions devoted to DEI discrimination. Donations are greatly needed and appreciated.
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Comments
A Leftist state being sued by the US Federal government for violating the civil rights of whites. It feels like we have fallen through a trans-dimensional rift.
Subotai Bahadur
You’re right! Spock has a goatee!
how did whites end up on the losing side of the racial court cases?
Which cases are you talking about?
Just spitballing, but I would say it is a combination of reverse discrimination, and virtue signalling.
Again, first identify those alleged cases.
More great and laudable work by Professor Jacobson and the EPP team.
What’s galling is how leftists brazenly spit upon the U.S. Constitution and federal anti-discrimination laws, and gleefully promote obnoxiously racist policies, while fallaciously claiming the mantle of “social justice.”
Private charities, just like individuals, have the fundamental right to decide for themselves who is a worthy object of their charity, including on racial grounds if that’s what’s important to them. Congress has no right to make laws interfering with that.
So long as the actions being funded are lawful then sure individuals and charities can fund what they want. Whether the charity retains any special tax status is dependent on their compliance with applicable statutes and the loss of tax status doesn’t prohibit the same individual donors from contributing to a common fund to continue funding their otherwise lawful goals.
There appear to be limits on what private parties or charities can do. Surely, you or I can make a gift to whomever we want and not to whomever else. But the Fearless Fund was a private organization and was stopped from giving grants to only female applicants. Where is the line? It cannot be merely 501(c) status; indeed, the unlawful discrimination may void that.
That case settled. But the 11th circuit’s finding that it had likely violated the law, which prompted the settlement, was very wrong. Congress has no right to interfere in private gift-giving. Treating a gift as a contract is just perverse.
To put it another way, philanthropy is not commerce. Congress has not been given any power to regulate it.
RI proggies are long overdue for a good curb-stomping.
A legal curb-stomping, of course. And not in Minecraft.
I’m waiting for Providence mayoral hopeful commie Morales to organize a F*ck DOJ protest in 3, 2, 1..
So what’s their legal definition of white?
It’s entirely a matter of self-definition.
Je Suis Lizzie!
It seems like very flimsy legal concept indeed.
Great work! But given the way things are headed I pray that Professor J is taking precautions. The Left is busily weaponizing their crazies, and targeting them towards their most effective critics. EPP has probably become a real thorn in their side, and therefore it might be prudent to monitor those Discord servers just in case.
If the Charity had publicized and administered it, without the active participation of the School, would it have been lawful?
The charity would lose its 501(c)(3) status if it discriminates.
I’d be astonished if that were the case.
It’s perfectly legitimate to start up a 501(c)(3) to aid an underserved class of a specific race, religion, or nationality.
NAACP and ADL are two well-known examples.
I suspect that this case will be resolved favorable via a motion for summary judgement, without any actual trial being needed.
Actually, the defendants should just concede the case ASAP.
If they do, it will be due to some earthshaking epiphany.
The RI government tends to consist of specimens from that uniquely RI class known as Thickheads.
What amazes me, and I see it time and time again, is not just cases like this, but also cases where Conservative teachers and professors get crapped on and eventually terminated by lefty schools and colleges for not bending the knee to them, and then they will ‘lawyer up’ and sue the snot out if them, and win big money EVERY TIME, and yet these same places never seem to learn, and they keep doing the same thing over and over….and each time there is more case law against them for the next person that needs to sue them.