Education Department Launches Investigation Into Dozens Of Colleges

The Department of Education opened investigations into dozens of universities Friday, part of President Donald Trump’s campaign to pressure the higher education world to fall in line with his administration.

The Education Department alleged these schools violated civil rights laws by offering race-based scholarships and programs, part of an ongoing crusade to snuff out diversity, equity and inclusion programs across the country.

The Education Department’s investigation targets 45 public and private universities — including Vanderbilt, Yale and Duke — which participated in a program called “The Ph.D. Project,” which the agency said in a news release “limit[ed] eligibility based on the race of participants.”

The agency’s Office for Civil Rights is also probing seven other universities — including Ithaca College, the University of Alabama and the University of Minnesota Twin Cities — for “alleged impermissible race-based scholarships and race-based segregation,” according to an Education Department announcement.

“The Department is working to reorient civil rights enforcement to ensure all students are protected from illegal discrimination,” said U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon in a statement. “Students must be assessed according to merit and accomplishment, not prejudged by the color of their skin. We will not yield on this commitment.”

It’s unclear exactly how the schools were enforcing purported race-based segregation or awards. The Education Department and Ph.D. Project did not respond to a request for comment.

This investigation comes weeks after the agency’s civil rights office sent a letter to colleges that received federal funding warning they should cease “using race preferences and stereotypes as a factor in their admissions, hiring, promotion, compensation, scholarships, prices, administrative support, sanctions, discipline and other programs and activities.”

Since the beginning of Trump’s second term, the Education Department has also launched investigations for on-campus sex-based discrimination at the University of Pennsylvania and San Jose State University, which the department chastised for allowing transgender women in female sports leagues.

It’s part of the Trump administration’s quest to crack down on colleges by using the federal purse as leverage. Many of these institutions rely on federal funds to sustain staffing, finance student tuition and maintain facilities.

The country’s scientific research departments housed in many of these universities are also now at the brink of collapse, industry leaders warn, as the Trump administration issues massive funding cuts for grants for facilities, logistics and day-to-day upkeep to cut government spending. The major cuts are tied up in the courts.

Columbia University — which has long drawn the ire of the Trump administration because of its “continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students” — is now feeling the squeeze from another front.

Last week, the federal government rescinded about $400 million in grants and contracts for, in the eyes of the administration, failing to crack down on antisemitism.

The Justice Department is now investigating 10 institutions, including Columbia, because of their responses to antisemitic incidents on campus since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel.