The lawsuit is another example of the Trump administration’s focus on diversity, equity and inclusion programs that it argues are discriminatory. The administration has accused both universities and K-12 public schools of using racial preferences in their hiring practices or in access to educational opportunities.
Launched in 2021, Providence’s Educator of Color Loan Forgiveness Program offered up to $25,000 to newly hired teachers who “identify as Asian, Black, Indigenous, Latino, biracial or multi-racial” who also have student loan debt.
The goal was to hire 127 teachers of color by the end of this school year. The district’s lopsided racial makeup — most teachers are white, while most students are not — prompted the initiative.
The Rhode Island Foundation put $3.1 million into funding the program. While the loan forgiveness did not directly come from taxpayers, the DOJ said the opportunity to participate was only afforded to public school employees, and the district was the one approving the applications based on race and ethnicity. The foundation “merely writes the checks,” the DOJ lawyers wrote.
The lawsuit says the program violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
“Excluding white teachers is racist and unlawful,” the suit says.
It was not immediately clear if the program is still running. A page on the school district’s website with information about the program has been taken down.
Spokespeople for the R.I. Department of Education and Providence Public School District did not immediately comment. The R.I. Department of Education is a defendant in the lawsuit because of the state takeover of the school district.
When the investigation first launched, superintendent Javier Montañez defended the program, writing in a letter to the Providence School Board that the program has a “direct, positive impact on student outcomes as demonstrated by years of educational research.”
“The diversity of our community is a tremendous asset, and we deeply value and support the variety of cultures and identities of our students as well as our staff members,” Montañez said.
Roughly 73 percent of Providence teachers are white, compared to just 8 percent of the district’s students, according to the most recently available data.
Most Providence students are Hispanic, at 68 percent, and 14 percent are Black.
“The benefits of a diverse faculty are well documented,” Neil Steinberg, the former head of the Rhode Island Foundation, said in a news release announcing the program in 2021. “Students can be inspired in new ways when their classrooms include role models who look like them.”
The foundation did not immediately comment on the lawsuit Tuesday.
The DOJ is seeking an injunction preventing Providence from running this program along with any similar programs that provide loan forgiveness only for teachers of color. The lawsuit also asks for an unspecified award for Providence teachers who were newly hired by not eligible for the program on the basis of race.
“While assisting new teachers in paying off their students loans may be a worthy cause, such a benefit of employment simply cannot be granted or withheld on the basis of the teacher’s race,” Harmeet K. Dhillon, an assistant attorney general for the DOJ, said in a statement. “We will not tolerate such plainly prohibited discrimination in employment.”