Oregon Under Fire For Grant Program That Won’t Give Money To Schools With Too Many White Kids

Two nonprofits are demanding an investigation into Oregon’s allegedly anti-white education grants.

Defending Education and Do No Harm (DNH) filed a joint complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights against Oregon’s education department and Higher Education Coordinating Commission (HECC) on May 28, according to a Defending Education press release. The complaint accuses an Oregon grants program of being racially discriminatory.

The U.S. Department of Education, Oregon’s Department of Education, and HECC did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.

“What stands out most about Oregon’s system of public school funding is the sheer blatancy of the discrimination – explicit racial quotas and race-based bonuses for distributing public funds written into Oregon law and policy. This race-based essentialism has no place in Oregon or elsewhere in the United States,” DNH Chief Medical Officer Dr. Kurt Miceli told the DCNF.

Oregon’s Department of Education awards the Charter School Equity Grant to schools where at least 65% of students are disabled and/or students belong to “[r]acial or ethnic groups that have historically experienced academic disparities,” according to the grant’s text.

This violates the “‘color-blind’ mandate” of both Title VI and the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, the complaint alleges.

“…[G]overnments, the [Supreme] Court explained, may not use ‘amorphous concept[s]’ like past ‘societal discrimination’ to justify giving a boost to members of one racial group ‘at the expense of other innocent individuals,’” it states.

The complaint also alleged that Oregon’s HECC violates those same statutes by “distribut[ing] ‘bonus’ taxpayer funds to schools based on the number of minority students who graduate from each school” through their Public University Support Fund (PUSF).

PUSF’s funding totaled approximately $1.07 billion in the 2025-2027 Governor’s Budget.

“Oregon’s Department of Education and Oregon’s Higher Education Coordinating Commission appear to be violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by administering programs that explicitly discriminate on the basis of race. The Department oversees more than 1,200 public K-12 schools and over 560,000 students, and it receives more than $150 million annually in federal grant funding,” Defending Education Vice President Sarah Perry told the DCNF. “But it operates a Charter School Equity Grants program, which explicitly funds charters that have at least a 65-percent minority population — something that looks very much like an illegal race-based quota.”

“The Commission fares no better, as it awards taxpayer funds to schools based on the number of minority students who graduate from each. That kind of race essentialism is odious to the Constitution, and we look forward to the Department of Education’s investigation into how the state is using its educational funds,” Perry said.

Defending Education “work[s] to restore schools at all levels from activists imposing harmful agendas,” according to its website.

Defending Education found in 2025 that over $300 million was raised for apparent DEI initiatives at universities across the nation since 2021, the DCNF previously reported.

“Oregon’s use of student racial demographics to allocate public funding for K-12 schools and universities is immoral and violates the Constitution and federal antidiscrimination law. Political activists have long pushed institutions to support equity over equality, and Oregon’s system of race-based funding to remedy vague claims of ‘societal discrimination’ is a clear example,” Miceli told the DCNF.

Do No Harm “represents physicians, nurses, medical students, patients, and policymakers focused on keeping identity politics out of medical education, research, and clinical practice,” according to its website.

The medical advocacy organization released a report in 2025 detailing how LGBTQ+ activists influenced hospitals to offer “transgender-specific clinical services,” the DCNF previously reported.

“Oregonians deserve to know their tax dollars support equal educational opportunities for all. However, the state’s current system distributes public funding using racial quotas and race-based ‘bonuses’ that prioritize certain student racial demographics while actively disfavoring white and Asian racial groups,” Miceli said. “Our complaint shines much-needed light on these discriminatory practices, and we look forward to the Department of Education holding Oregon accountable.”