At least one Oklahoma university may be in the crosshairs of federal investigators seeking to weed out illegal racial discrimination.

In March, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) opened investigations into 45 universities for alleged violations of anti-discrimination law, backing with action the words of warning provided to colleges and universities nationwide in a Feb. 14 “Dear Colleague” letter.

The University of Oklahoma-Tulsa School of Community Medicine was among those identified as being under investigation for alleged impermissible race-based scholarships and race-based segregation.

On Feb. 14, Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Education, issued a “Dear Colleague” letter “to clarify and reaffirm the nondiscrimination obligations of schools and other entities that receive federal financial assistance from the United States Department of Education,” warning colleges that the use of discriminatory practices in admissions policies or similar practices are illegal and can result in federal action.

“In recent years, American educational institutions have discriminated against students on the basis of race, including white and Asian students, many of whom come from disadvantaged backgrounds and low-income families,” Trainor wrote. “These institutions’ embrace of pervasive and repugnant race-based preferences and other forms of racial discrimination have emanated throughout every facet of academia.”

He noted that many colleges “have routinely used race as a factor in admissions, financial aid, hiring, training, and other institutional programming,” and wrote that many colleges and universities “under the banner of ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ (‘DEI’)” have been “smuggling racial stereotypes and explicit race-consciousness into everyday training, programming, and discipline.”

Trainor warned that activity “is, has been, and will continue to be illegal,” pointing to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which prohibited the use of racial discrimination in admissions policies. Trainor noted the court’s decision applied beyond college admissions practices.

“At its core, the test is simple: If an educational institution treats a person of one race differently than it treats another person because of that person’s race, the educational institution violates the law,” Trainor wrote. “Federal law thus prohibits covered entities from using race in decisions pertaining to admissions, hiring, promotion, compensation, financial aid, scholarships, prizes, administrative support, discipline, housing, graduation ceremonies, and all other aspects of student, academic, and campus life. Put simply, educational institutions may neither separate or segregate students based on race, nor distribute benefits or burdens based on race.”

He warned college officials that using “non-racial information as a proxy for race, and making decisions based on that information,” also violates the law.

Trainor warned college officials that any institution failing to comply with federal anti-discrimination law would “face potential loss of federal funding.”

Ian Kingsbury, director of research for Do No Harm, a group of medical professionals dedicated to keeping identity politics out of medical education, said the U.S. Department of Education’s actions are much needed.

“In 2023, the Supreme Court ruled in Students for Fair Admissions that race-conscious college admissions violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment,” Kingsbury said. “Unfortunately, many universities have disregarded this ruling. For example, we can see in admissions data from medical schools that black and Hispanic applicants continue to have vastly lower admissions standards compared to white and Asian applicants. 

“The Dear Colleague letter is putting universities on notice,” Kingsbury continued. “It clarifies that SFFA is not simply a suggestion but a decision that universities must abide by to receive federal funds.”

Do No Harm previously shone a light on potentially illegal practices at the University of Oklahoma.

In July 2024, Do No Harm reported that information obtained through open-records requests showed policies at the University of Oklahoma’s College of Medicine included the use of a 2022 survey that measured performance against DEI metrics.

Use of that “Diversity, Inclusion, Culture, and Equity (DICE) survey” at OU was part of a larger national effort to “pressure medical schools across the country to embrace controversial policies that discriminate against faculty and students on the basis of race, ethnicity, and other identity-based characteristics,” Do No Harm reported.

Based on information obtained through open-record requests, Do No Harm concluded that officials at the OU College of Medicine had “adopted potentially racially discriminatory admissions practices under the guise of ‘holistic admissions practices,’” and employed tenure and promotion policies that “specifically reward faculty scholarship and service on diversity, equity, and inclusion topics.”

Do No Harm reported that the OU College of Medicine also provided “financial scholarships to students based on racially discriminatory criteria” that would, in practice, “disadvantage people of certain racial and ethnic backgrounds—namely, nearly 8 out of 10 in-state residents for whom the university was intended to serve.”

When news of the federal investigation broke, an OU spokesperson told The Oklahoman that university officials were “aware of the announcement from the Department of Education and are looking into the matter.”