New AAUP Report Analyzes Weaponization of Title VI in DOE Investigations

Today, the AAUP's Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure issued a new report, On Title VI, Discrimination, and Academic Freedom, that addresses the issue of discrimination in higher education and the recent surge in US Department of Education investigations utilizing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin, in programs that receive federal funding. Noting that the Department of Education has pursued more than sixty investigations at colleges and universities since October 7, 2023, many of them opened during the second Trump administration, the report analyses the motivation and legality of these efforts. The report examines the question of whether the targeted speech, expression, and programming qualify as legally actionable discrimination. It also directly addresses the severity and scale of the Trump administration's attempts to redefine discrimination and, in the process, to erode democratic norms on and off campus.

The report also explores the AAUP's historical approach to academic freedom and opposition to invidious discrimination in higher education and applies it to an analysis of the Trump administration's weaponization of Title VI, including why these investigations have increasingly focused on national origin involving religion ("shared ancestry"), and an evaluation of the effects of the new Title VI investigations on speech and expressive activity protected by the First Amendment and by academic freedom. The report also considers how Title VI, like Title IX, has been used to create an enforcement apparatus that sidesteps long-established AAUP-recommended procedures of shared governance. It concludes with a series of recommendations for faculty members, administrators, and governing boards.

There is no doubt, the report concludes, that "the Trump administration has wielded Title VI with the goals of discrediting institutions of higher education, compromising academic freedom and institutional autonomy, and unmooring the Civil Rights Act from its foundational commitments to addressing structures of discrimination that prevent educational access." It argues that "the Trump administration's attempt to unmake the Civil Rights Act by hijacking the language of discrimination is nothing less than an attempt to rewrite the history of the nation." The AAUP's history of commitment to the fundamental principles of academic freedom, free speech, antidiscrimination, and equality, the report states, informs the national AAUP's active opposition to the Trump administration's attacks on higher education and on democracy itself. This includes the AAUP's decision to file or join lawsuits challenging the unlawful and unconstitutional actions of the Trump administration's executive orders, "Dear Colleague" letters, and abuses of Title VI.

The full report and recommendations can be found here.