Washington – More than 50 universities are being investigated for suspected racial discrimination as part of President Donald Trump’s campaign for termination of diversity, justice and inclusion programs, which his employees say exclude white and Asian US students.
The education department announced the new investigations on Friday, one month after the issuance of a note warning of the schools and colleges of America that they may lose federal money because of “race preferences” in foster, scholarships or any aspect of student life.
“Students should be appreciated according to the merits and achievements, not prejudice from their skin color,” Education Minister Linda McMahon said in a statement. “We will not give in to this commitment.”
Most of the new investigations are focused on the partnerships of colleges with the doctoral project, a non -profit purpose that helps students from insufficiently represented groups receive business diplomas in order to diversify the business world.
Officers of the department said the group limited the eligibility on the basis of race and that the colleges that partner with it “participate in racial practices in their programs.”
The group of 45 colleges facing the doctoral projects face, includes large state universities such as Arizona, Ohio and Rutgers, along with prestigious private schools such as Yale, Cornell, Duke and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
A message sent to the doctoral project was not returned immediately.
Six other colleges are being investigated for the award of “unacceptable scholarships based on competitions,” said the department and another is accused of implementing a program that segregates the students on the basis of a race.
These seven are: Grand Valley State University, Ithaca College, New England College of Optometry, The University of Alabama, University of Minnesota, University of South Florida and Medicine University of Tulsa.
The department did not say which of the seven was investigated for charges of segregation.
The note on February 14 by the Republican Trump administration was a great expansion of the Supreme Court’s decision in 2023, which banned colleges from using race as a factor in acceptance.
This decision focuses on the admission policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina, but the education department said it would interpret the decision to ban policies based on a race in every aspect of education, both in K-12 schools and in higher education.
In the note, Craig Coach, acting in civil rights assistant, said that the diversity, justice and inclusion of schools were “smuggling racial stereotypes and an explicit awareness of race in daily training, programming and discipline.”
The note is challenged in the federal court cases by the two largest teaching unions of the nation. The costumes say the note is too unclear and violates the rights of free speech of the teachers.
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