The Equal Protection Project has filed over 115 civil rights complaints against over 290 institutions regarding over 850 programs and scholarships. We have had many wins and impacts (over 340 by our count). While most of our civil rights complaints have been filed with the Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (OCR), increasingly have filed at HUD, DOJ, and HHS.
Our latest Civil Rights Complaint was filed with OCR on September 16, 2026, against Bentley University in Massachusetts regarding two scholarships and one program that discriminate on the basis of race and national origin.. From the Complaint:
We bring this civil rights complaint against Bentley University (“Bentley”), a private institution, regarding one scholarship and two programs (collectively, the “Programs”) that discriminate based on race in violation of Title VI….
1. Discover Bentley Program
Link: https://www.bentley.edu/graduate/why-bentley/discover-bentley-program
Archived Link: https://archive.is/wip/Yagao
Discriminatory Requirement: “Eligibility: If you identify as Black, Latinx, Asian, Indigenous or Native American.”***
2. Dr. Earl L. Avery Endowed Scholarship
Link: https://www.bentley.edu/news/bentley-announces-dr-earl-l-avery-scholarship-talented-students-color;
https://community.bentley.edu/register/give?sys%3Agift%3Aappeal_key=givehm&utm_source=giving-nav&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=adv&utm_content=homepage
Archived Link: https://archive.is/wip/GzuMe; https://archive.is/wip/B57E6
Discriminatory Requirement: “The scholarship will be awarded annually to academically talented students of color who demonstrate financial need, and recipients will be known as Dr. Earl L. Avery Scholars.”***
3. MOSAIC Experience
Link: https://www.bentley.edu/university-life/campus-life/undergraduate-orientation
Archived Link: https://archive.is/wip/QHnOO
Discriminatory Requirement: “The MOSAIC Experience is a pre-orientation program that happens in the fall for new students of color and their allies.”
After explaining why these programs violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, we addressed the language “and their allies” in one of the programs and why that is not a legal out:
Title VI prohibits intentional discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin in any “program or activity” that receives federal financial assistance. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000d. The term “program or activity” encompasses “all of the operations … of a college, university, or other postsecondary institution, or a public system of higher education.” See 42 U.S.C. § 2000d-4a(2)(A). As the Eighth Circuit explained, “Title VI prohibits discrimination on the basis of race in federally funded programs.” Rowles v. Curators of the Univ. of Mo., 983 F.3d 345, 355 (8th Cir. 2020). Bentley receives federal financial assistance and therefore is subject to Title VI.6
In Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College, 600 U.S. 181 (2023), the Supreme Court declared that “[e]liminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it …. The guarantee of equal protection cannot mean one thing when applied to one individual and something else when applied to a person of another color. If both are not accorded the same protection, then it is not equal.” Id. at 206 (cleaned up). “Distinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry [including race] are by their very nature odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality.” Id. at 208.
Regardless of Bentley’s reasons for offering, promoting, and administering such discriminatory programs, they are violating Title VI by doing so. It does not matter if the recipient of federal funding discriminates in order to advance a benign “intention” or “motivation.” Bostock v. Clayton Cnty., 590 U.S. 644, 661 (2020) (“Intentionally burning down a neighbor’s house is arson, even if the perpetrator’s ultimate intention (or motivation) is only to improve the view.”); accord Automobile Workers v. Johnson Controls, Inc., 499 U.S. 187, 199 (1991) (“the absence of a malevolent motive does not convert a facially discriminatory policy into a neutral policy with a discriminatory effect” or “alter [its] intentionally discriminatory character”). “Nor does it matter if the recipient discriminates against an individual member of a protected class with the idea that doing so might favor the interests of that class as a whole or otherwise promote equality at the group level.” Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard Coll., 600 U.S. 181, 289 (2023) (Gorsuch, J., concurring).
It is no defense that Bentley imposes racial, ethnic, and national origin preferences alongside otherwise lawful preferences, such as being an ally. Students who identify as members of Bentley’s preferred racial, ethnic, and national origin groups are automatically eligible for these Programs, while students outside those groups must satisfy an additional condition by participating only as allies.
CBS TV in Boston ran a short clip about the filing:
Reminder: we are a small organization going up against powerful and wealthy government and private institutions devoted to DEI discrimination. Donations are greatly needed and appreciated.
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