All but 14 of the 45 universities placed under investigation for participating in the PhD Project and allegedly violating civil rights law have agreed to cease partnering with the organization, the Education Department announced Thursday. The Office for Civil Rights launched the investigations last March, arguing that the PhD Project, a nonprofit organization that connects prospective business doctoral candidates from underrepresented backgrounds with academic networks, was "limit[ing] eligibility based on the race of participants."
President Donald Trump has struck a different tone, suggesting that some of these workers "don't deserve" back pay and seizing the opportunity to fire others, particularly those who staff and run what he has called "Democrat agencies." One of these agencies is the Department of Education, whose Office for Civil Rights enforces laws such as Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act-which bars discrimination based on race, color, and national origin-in federally funded schools and colleges.
In June, in an escalation of the Trump administration's pressure on Harvard University to bow to its demands, a federal Office for Civil Rights announced that the institution was violating federal law. The office released a nearly 60-page report accusing Harvard of "deliberate indifference" to ongoing discrimination against Jewish and Israeli students, which is illegal under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
