On February 28, 2025, the U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights (OCR) published Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) pertaining to its February 14 Dear Colleague Letter. The FAQ discusses OCR’s interpretation of the scope of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, 600 U.S. 181 (2023). The FAQ states that “school-sponsored or school-endorsed racially segregated aspects of student, academic, and campus life, such as programming, graduation ceremonies, and housing, are legally indefensible.” The FAQ acknowledges that events “that celebrate or recognize historical events and contributions and promote awareness” would not violate Title VI but asserts that “extreme practices at a university—such as requiring students to participate in privilege walks, segregating them by race for presentations and discussions with guest speakers, pressuring them to participate in protests or take certain positions on racially charged issues, investigating or sanctioning them for dissenting on racially charged issues through DEI or similar university offices, mandating courses, orientation programs, or trainings that are designed to emphasize and focus on racial stereotypes, and assigning them coursework that requires them to identify by race and then complete tasks differentiated by race—are all forms of school-on-student harassment that could create a hostile environment under Title VI.”
It also states that OCR may rely on the three-part McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973) Title VII employment discrimination burden shifting test to “assess indirect evidence of individual discrimination” against students.