PROVIDENCE – The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission determined on July 24 there is “reasonable cause” that a multimillion-dollar student loan forgiveness program to recruit minority teachers to the Providence Public School District violated Title VII of the 1964 U.S Civil Rights Act.
And it is currently unclear what options there are for the state’s largest school district or the R.I. Department of Education – which currently controls PPSD – have to resolve the matter with the commission.
Back in October 2020, the Rhode Island Foundation
launched 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 commitment,
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, through this program, 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 U.S. 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 patter 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 has “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.
Per Feng An's letter, the commission’s investigation found that in April 2021, PPSD entered into an agreement with RIDE and “a third-party foundation” (the commission didn’t identify Rhode Island Foundation by name) for the district’s “recruitment and retention of new teachers of color.” Subsequently, PPSD and RIDE entered into a memorandum of understanding to launch the loan forgiveness program in May 2021, per the letter, leading to job postings on PPSD’s website and the loan forgiveness program paid for student loans up to $25,000 “for a period of three years solely for new teachers of color.”
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.”
Victor Morente, spokesperson for RIDE, said the department and PPSD are declining comment Thursday to PBN about if there was a major disparity where more people of color were hired as teachers by PPSD over the last five years than white people, what options does RIDE, PPSD and Rhode Island Foundation have to make teacher hiring more equitable in the district in resolving this matter with the commission, citing the situation being "an ongoing legal matter." The foundation also declined comment to PBN's questions, including how this ruling will impact the foundation’s $8.5 million initiative, through spokesperson Chris Barnett.
William A. Jacobson, founder of the Legal Insurrection Foundation, wrote in his post on his website calling the loan forgiveness program “one of the greatest race-discrimination scandals in modern Rhode Island history.” Jacobson claims that PPSD’s diversity, equity and inclusion agenda created conditions in the district that allowed racism against white teachers to “flourish.”
“Shame on the politicians in Rhode Island and the city of Providence who stayed silent while their constituents faced open racial discrimination,” Jacobson wrote. “The political structure in Rhode Island and Providence failed the people. Now it’s up to the federal authorities to fix this mess by commencing further legal actions.”
(UPDATED 11th paragraph to include comment from R.I. Department of Education spokesperson Victor Morente and Rhode Island Foundation spokesperson Chris Barnett. CLARIFICATION: The Rhode Island Foundation raising $3.1 million to help the Providence Public School District hire minority teachers in 2020 was a separate initiative from the $8.5 million commitment it made to address racial inequity in the state.)
James Bessette is the PBN special projects editor, and also covers the nonprofit and education sectors. You may reach him at Bessette@PBN.com. You may also follow him on X at @James_Bessette.
