When the Department of Education published guidance last month targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion programs on college campuses, the American Sociological Association (ASA) sprang into action.
With help from Democracy Forward, a nonprofit legal organization whose board is chaired by disgraced Democratic superlawyer Marc Elias, the association sued to block the enforcement of the Education Department’s Dear Colleague letter, which argues that a wide range of DEI initiatives—not just overt racial preferences—violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.
The complaint described a parade of horribles that would allegedly result from the guidance. The list of prohibited practices is so broad, according to the ASA, that honoring Martin Luther King Jr. could jeopardize a school’s federal funding—even though President Donald Trump invoked King in his Inaugural Address and issued a presidential proclamation urging educators to observe black history month.
"No federal law prevents teaching about race and race-related topics, and the Supreme Court has not banned efforts to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in education," the complaint reads. "This Letter radically upends and re-writes otherwise well-established jurisprudence."
But regardless of the letter’s legality, ASA appears to be violating Title VI. That’s because the professional association, which received $1 million in federal funds last year, has a minority fellowship program that explicitly discriminates against white applicants.
The fellowship, advertised on ASA’s website, requires applicants to meet at least two of four criteria—one of which is identifying "as a member of an underrepresented racial or ethnic group among sociology PhDs." Those groups include "Black/African American; Latino/a/x; American Indian or Alaskan Native; Asian or Pacific Islander; and Middle Eastern and North African/Southwest Asian and North African," according to the eligibility criteria. Fellows receive a $20,000 stipend as well as funding for travel and professional development.
President Donald Trump has promised a scorched-earth campaign against DEI in higher education. The ASA fellowship illustrates how the institutions inclined to resist that campaign could find themselves vulnerable to it, weighed down by programs and policies that would have been major liabilities even without the Dear Colleague letter.
"The Fellowship Program looks to be precisely the kind of faddish, illegal discrimination by a large association that the President has told all agencies to make sure they no longer support," said Dan Morenoff, the executive director of the American Civil Rights Project, a conservative public interest law firm. "ASA openly, currently treats applicants for its program differently because of their race."
That brazenness could be an awkward stumbling block for Democracy Forward—one of the main firms resisting the Trump administration’s executive orders—which has put some of its star lawyers on the ASA case. Among them are Victoria Nugent, a well-known litigator on the D.C. Bar’s ethics committee, and Rachel Homer, a senior official in the Biden Education Department.
Founded by Marc Elias in the wake of the 2016 election, Democracy Forward boasts that it has taken "the Trump administration to court more than 100 times." It has also published reports on "strengthening" DEI initiatives and accused Project 2025, the policy agenda put out by the Heritage Foundation, of attempting to "create a country that allows for more discrimination."
"Their proposals will enable discrimination across society," Democracy Forward wrote in a 2024 report, including in "education."
Neither Nugent nor Homer responded to requests for comment. The American Sociological Association, which boasts nearly 10,000 members, did not respond to a request for comment.
Title VI was widely understood to ban race-based fellowships even before the Supreme Court outlawed affirmative action in college admissions. The Dear Colleague letter argued that the logic of that case, Students For Fair Admissions v. Harvard, applied to other initiatives as well, such as DEI programs that "stigmatize students … based on crude racial stereotypes." Even eliminating standardized tests in order to "increase racial diversity"—a matter on which the Supreme Court has not yet ruled—would be illegal under the new guidance.
Filed jointly with the American Federation of Teachers, which lobbied for schools to remain closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, ASA’s lawsuit describes the Dear Colleague letter as "unlawfully vague" and says it could "chill speech and expression." It also claims that efforts to ban affinity groups could shutter Hillels or historically black fraternities, undermining free association in the name of protecting civil rights.
Several of those objections have now been addressed by the department. In a frequently asked questions page about the Dear Colleague letter, the Department’s Office of Civil Rights said that "programs focused on … particular cultures, heritages, and areas of the world would not in and of themselves violate Title VI, assuming they are open to all students regardless of race." The same goes for observances like MLK Day that "celebrate or recognize historical events and contributions."
However, the guidance goes on, "schools must consider whether any school programming discourages members of all races from attending." They "cannot engage in any programming, graduation ceremonies, housing, or any other aspect of school life that allows one race but not another."