The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights has opened an investigation into 35 scholarships offered at the University of Rhode Island after a Barrington-based conservative nonprofit filed a complaint alleging that they violate federal law by setting qualifications based on race and gender.
Although the Equal Protection Project, an arm of the nonprofit Legal Insurrection Foundation, has brought similar complaints against dozens of colleges and universities nationwide, the group’s founder, William A. Jacobson, a Cornell Law School professor, asserts that URI’s case was the most egregious in the number of scholarships that use race or gender in eligibility requirements and the explicitness of the application language.
Jacobson says the interest in the state’s only public university was the result of a tip to look into a single scholarship, and the examination expanded from there.
Because the scholarship applications, at least as recently as 2024, were accepted through its URI Academic Works portal, the federally subsidized institution may have violated the constitutional protection against unequal treatment, as well as civil rights prohibitions against racial or gender-based discrimination, Jacobson says.
“This is an unprecedented level of violation here,” he said. “And we think it is completely indefensible.”
The U.S. Department of Education did not respond to requests for comment.
URI spokesperson Dawn Bergantino declined to comment on the investigation but provided a statement saying the school administration “is reviewing the issue outlined in the Department of Education’s letter of inquiry.”
“We remain committed to our foundational values and mission and to complying with legal requirements,” Bergantino said.
Asked why the scholarships are not currently listed on the university’s application portal, Bergantino said “they are not being offered while we undertake a review to confirm compliance with anti-discrimination laws.”
Jacobson’s efforts come at a time when President Donald Trump’s administration has been acting against diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, otherwise known as DEI.
In February, Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Education, issued a letter stating that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina – rulings in 2023 that effectively ended affirmative action in college admissions – should be applied beyond college admissions. He asserted that any educational institution treating individuals differently based on race is in violation of federal civil rights laws.
Of the more than 60 colleges and universities that the Legal Insurrection Foundation has brought complaints against, 35 have already changed eligibility requirements or ended programs outright, the group says.
Many of the URI scholarships under the federal microscope are backed by big-name alumni, private donors and companies. Less familiar are the names of some smaller scholarships that are being investigated.
One scholarship was established after the daughter of Michelle Brophy-Baermann, a Rhode Island College associate professor of political science, was fatally shot outside her boyfriend’s Providence apartment in August 2021. At the time of her death, Miya Brophy-Baermann had just started a clinical fellowship at the Lincolnwood Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center in North Providence, and the family decided to use tens of thousands of dollars in online donations to start the scholarship in her name. It would provide $1,500 to a student with preference to, but not limited to, a male speech-language-pathology student who is a racial minority or the first in their family to attend college.
Miya Brophy-Baermann, a URI graduate who earned a master’s degree in speech-language pathology at Northeastern University, supported social justice and believed there was a lack of diversity in speech-pathology studies and inequities in the greater health care system, her mother says.
“To find out that this [investigation] is happening is very frustrating,” Michelle Brophy-Baermann said. “It’s something that we chose to do because of our daughter’s values. But it’s not surprising given everything that’s going on right now.”
Brophy-Baermann hopes the fund – which is now administered through the Rhode Island Foundation – isn’t abandoned, even if the eligibility requirements need to be changed.
“I am fine if they need to remove some of the language. It is better than nothing,” she said. “So long as it goes to students that are typically disadvantaged by the way things are.”
Whatever happens to scholarships such as the Alumni of Color Network Scholars Fund to “support a student of color” or the Benson Scholarship Endowment to award funds to “an African American student with a record of well-rounded academic achievement and demonstrated commitment to community service,” Jacobson said his aim is not to deny anyone the opportunity to fund their educations. He says he just wants it done in accordance with federal law.
“There was no nuance or interpretation,” he said. “You simply can’t have a scholarship that says it is only open to non-whites.
“Whether diversity, equity and inclusion are good or bad is a separate issue,” he said. “You can achieve diversity in lawful ways. But you cannot achieve it by virtue of racial or sex-based discrimination.”
After Trump’s slew of executive orders regarding diversity initiatives in the public sector, URI President Marc B. Parlange convened a “leadership team on federal actions” to track developments “and coordinate activities across the university,” according to its webpage.
Jacobson, a Harvard-trained attorney, says he was shocked that nobody at the university saw the writing on the wall.
“There are administrators whose job is to make sure something like this doesn’t happen. They have elaborate non-discrimination rules and a huge bureaucracy,” he said. “How is it that nobody said, ‘Wait a minute, we can’t do this.’ ”
