PROVIDENCE – The U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against the R.I. Department of Education and the Providence Public School District over a multimillion-dollar student loan forgiveness program designed to recruit minority teachers.
In its complaint filed Tuesday in Washington, D.C., the DOJ alleges RIDE and PPSD practiced race-based discrimination by establishing the program to provide more than $3.1 million 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,” according to the complaint. “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 ... The United States alleges that this race-based exclusion is a pattern or practice of discrimination [against] PPSD teachers who do not identify as ‘teachers of color’ in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended.”
This case stems from an investigation launched by the Employment Litigation section of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division.
“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.”
On July 24, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission determined there was “reasonable cause” that the student loan forgiveness violated Title VII of the 1964 U.S Civil Rights Act.
In October 2020, the Rhode Island Foundation announced an $8.5 million commitment over a three-year period to lead and strengthen community efforts focused on diversity, equity, access and inclusion, focusing primarily on racial equality in the state. Then-foundation CEO and President Neil D. Steinberg told Providence Business News the nonprofit funder needed to do more to help close inequity gaps that exist in the Ocean State.
Around that same time it launched the $8.5 million initiative, the foundation separately raised $3.1 million that would assist PPSD to hire more than 125 minority teachers over a five-year period, starting with 25 such teachers for the 2021-22 academic year. As part of the program, new minority teachers will also be offered a college-loan repayment incentive totaling up to $25,000 over the first three years they are employed in the district.
However, the tuition reimbursement initiative drew the attention of both the EEOC after Barrington-based conservative media group Legal Insurrection Foundation filed a complaint with the commission against the district and also the U.S. Department of Justice. According to a March 21 letter to both RIDE and PPSD obtained by PBN, the justice department launched an investigation into the school district allegedly engaging in “a pattern or practice of discrimination based on race” regarding the student loan repayment program, which would violate the Civil Rights Act’s Title VII provision. Title VII prohibits employers from discriminating against individuals on the basis of color, race, religion, sex or national origin.
At the time, justice department investigators in the letter to PPSD and RIDE said it had “not reached any conclusions” about the investigation’s subject matter. Rather, the justice department welcomed both the district’s and department’s assistance in considering “all relevant information.”
Since then, the U.S. EEOC in its respective investigation made a final determination that, based on evidence it gathered, there is “reasonable cause” to believe that the district “engaged in unlawful discrimination” against a class of white applicants and employees were hired by PPSD as teachers for five straight academic years starting in 2021-22 based on race, color and national origin, according to a letter from Kenneth Feng An, director of U.S. EEOC’s Boston office, obtained by PBN.
Feng An wrote that if the commission determines there is reasonable cause to believe that violations occurred, the commission “shall endeavor” to eliminate the alleged unlawful employment practices “by informal methods of conference, conciliation and persuasion.”
“Having determined that there is reason to believe that violations have occurred, the commission now invites [PPSD] to join with it in an effort toward a just resolution of this matter,” said Feng An, who also asked the district to contact an equal opportunity investigator within 10 days after receiving the commission’s letter “to indicate your willingness to participate in EEOC’s conciliation program to address the violation noted in this letter of determination.”
