The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has found reasonable cause to believe that the Providence Public School District unlawfully discriminated against White teachers by offering student loan forgiveness exclusively to non-White educators through its “Educator of Color Loan Forgiveness Program.” This determination, based on an investigation led by the EEOC, highlights the district’s potential violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which mandates non-discrimination in employment based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
The program, which provided up to $25,000 in loan forgiveness to new teachers who identified as Asian, Black, Indigenous, Latino, biracial, or multi-racial, was introduced by the Providence Public School District after three consecutive years of teaching in the district. Legal Insurrection Foundation, a Rhode Island-based nonprofit group, filed a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education in 2022, alleging that the district’s eligibility criteria for the program constituted a systemic pattern of racial discrimination. The complaint detailed that the district’s practice of limiting the program to non-White educators represented a continuing violation of civil rights laws.
Cornell Law Professor William Jacobson, who founded the Equal Protection Project, called the program “racist” and expressed hope that the EEOC’s findings would lead to legal action to hold the district accountable for the discriminatory treatment of hundreds, if not thousands, of White teachers. “After almost three years of effort, EPP is seeing the legal pieces fall into place to stop this racist program,” Jacobson stated. “The U.S. Department of Justice has opened a formal investigation, and now the EEOC has issued a finding of ‘reasonable cause’ to believe the civil rights laws were violated. We are gratified by the findings of the EEOC, and look forward to the EEOC taking further legal action to vindicate the rights of those who were subject to unlawful discriminatory treatment.”
The Providence Public School District did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment. This case joins a growing list of high-profile investigations into alleged racial bias in educational and institutional practices, with the Justice Department previously opening probes into the University of California and Cornell University over similar allegations. The EEOC’s next steps will focus on conciliation and potential legal action to resolve the alleged discrimination, with the district required to contact the EEOC within ten days of receiving the determination letter.