The Department of Education determined the University of Kentucky violated the Civil Rights Act over its affiliation with a nonprofit that aimed to increase the racial diversity of business-school faculty, Kentucky’s president said Wednesday.
The department’s Office for Civil Rights found the university discriminated against students on the basis of race and national origin by “supporting a racially discriminatory event” last year, according to a letter the department sent to President Eli Capilouto. The letter, dated September 23, was shared publicly on Wednesday by Capilouto, who said in a message to the campus community the university would “comply with the law and policy direction” from the federal government.
Since March, Kentucky and 44 other universities have been under investigation for their partnerships with the PhD Project, a nonprofit group that encourages business professionals from underrepresented backgrounds to pursue doctorates.
The status of the other investigations are unclear, but Capilouto said Wednesday the university had signed a resolution earlier that day to conclude its review. Over two-dozen colleges contacted by The Chronicle on Tuesday and Wednesday didn’t respond to an inquiry asking if they had received a similar letter.
In its letter to Capilouto, the Education Department took particular aim at the PhD Project’s annual March conference, which had historically allowed only Black, Latino, and Native American prospective students to attend. (The organization opened participation to everyone the previous month.) The department asserted the university’s participation in it violated Title VI, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color, and national origin.
Although Capilouto said the university had swiftly canceled its participation in the PhD project after the Education Department announced its investigation, the department still found the university “endorsed, promoted, and benefited from a program that limited participation based on race through its payment of partnership fees and the support of travel for participants” in the 2023 and 2024 academic years.
Capilouto said the university paid about $5,000 annually to attend the conference, where the university participated in a fair and provided information about their doctoral programs. The university also paid the travel costs for two faculty members to attend the conference, and in 2024 gave money to a faculty member to be used for the PhD Project and “diversity, equity and inclusion professional and research activities,” the department’s letter states.
Kentucky also included the PhD Project’s logo on a flyer that representatives distributed at the conference.
As part of the resolution agreement signed Wednesday, the university will submit a report within 60 days that identifies any other organization with which the institution has an “agreement, membership, or partnership” that “may restrict participation based on race,” Capilouto said. The university must indicate their plans to terminate its relationship or provide a reason why they won’t, he added.
“The federal government — in this letter of finding and in other policy directives — has made clear that it is closely scrutinizing what we and other institutions do with respect to our financial support of identity-based organizations — both on campus and through external agreements,” Capilouto wrote. “We must take that policy direction seriously. At the same time, we also must continue to take seriously our goal to be a community where different people and different perspectives can belong.”
The little-known nonprofit, which has operated for over three decades, was put under the spotlight shortly before Trump’s second inauguration when Christopher Rufo, a leading critic of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, accused a university partnering with the PhD Project of “supporting racial segregation and breaking the law.”
The next day, several institutions in Texas withdrew their participation, and two months later the Office for Civil Rights opened its investigations.
The PhD Project’s president and chief executive, Alfonzo Alexander, told The Chronicle in May the Education Department’s investigations were premised on old information: This year, the PhD project opened participation to anyone, regardless of race and ethnicity.
Alexander, who could not be reached this week, said at the time the change had been in the works for a while.
The project counted 230 member institutions as partners before the investigations were announced, Alexander said. As of May, the organization had lost roughly 30 percent of its members.
Several of the institutions under investigation told The Chronicle in the spring they ended their partnership with the PhD Project or were currently reviewing it.
The Office for Civil Rights did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
