MSU 'surprised' by federal DOE racism allegations

A Montana university was one of 50 schools facing scrutiny from the Department of Education in the fallout of the new presidential administration’s row against diversity, equity, inclusion and access.

The issue? A job application board.

Despite President Donald Trump’s goal of dismantling the DOE, dozens of universities nationwide received word recently from the department accusing them of violating federal laws against racial discrimination, with Montana State University among them. Specifically, MSU paid to add job listings to a list from a non-profit organization whose aims are assisting historically underrepresented groups in getting business degrees.

“Montana State University is surprised by the notice it received from the U.S. Department of Education,” wrote MSU Vice President of Communications Tracy Ellig in a statement.

Last week’s announcement was one of many measures initiated in the past two months that serve Trump and his allies’ dual goals of slapping a chokehold on federal funding and dismantling regulations that advocate for inclusivity.

An assault against civil service

The second inauguration of Donald Trump was the start of an assault against civil service in the United States. Since taking office, the 78-year-old President has applauded South Africa-born billionaire Elon Musk’s measures to gut federal departments under the guise of making them more efficient and saving taxpayers money. Between Tesla and SpaceX, Musk’s own financial empire has soaked up over $30 billion in government subsidies, according to reporting from the Washington Post.

Trump tapped Musk, who pumped more than a quarter of a billion dollars into the president’s political campaign, to be a special employee to head the Department of Government Efficiency. With DOGE’s creation on the same day as Trump’s inauguration, thousands of government employees have had their jobs threatened, eliminated, or been fired only to have their jobs restored. About 1,300 NASA employees were laid off, while Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins announced earlier this month that the VA was planning to drop roughly 80,000 employees with the ambition of returning to staffing levels of 2019.

Amidst all of this, the Department of Education saw its staff cut in half. As of March 14, there were about 2,000 employees at the department tasked with overseeing school systems across the nation, administering financial assistance to the country’s students and enforcing laws that demand equal access to education for all students in the United States.

Since the inauguration, the department that Trump has promised to abolish launched a series of directives to public schools threatening consequences for employees maintaining policies of diversity, equity, inclusion and access. Trump nominated Linda McMahon, who chaired the super PAC America First Action, to head the DOE. The U.S. Senate confirmed her appointment March 3. Part of the department’s “final mission,” McMahon wrote in a statement published the same day, would be saddling the management of education solely on individual states.

DOE cut in half

In the two weeks since then, the DOE has announced the investigation of schools like MSU for racial discrimination, the investigation of 60 other universities for allegations of anti-Semitism and trumpeted the cancellation of about $400 million in grants for Columbia University. This was all while the department’s staff went from 4,100 to 2,100 people.

In a letter signed by the DOE’s Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor back in February, schools nationwide were put on notice that they had two weeks to ensure they complied with the department’s interpretation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. Taking aim at “DEI programs” in particular, Trainor wrote, “the federal government will no longer tolerate the overt and covert racial discrimination that has become widespread in this nation’s educational institutions.”

Now a politically fraught acronym, DEI typically references programs and standards that ensure organizations make an effort to be more inclusive, be it in their operations or hiring practices.

Failure to comply, Trainor wrote, would come at the loss of federal funding. Notably, among those cut from the DOE were staff at all regional offices of the department’s Office of Civil Rights, tasked with responding to allegations of discrimination, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. Assuming it’s still staffed and functioning, the Gazette left several voicemails with the DOE’s Office of Communications and Outreach for comment. They did not respond.

Allegations against MSU

Broadly speaking, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits any school that accepts federal funding, public or private, from hosting programs that discriminate against students based on race, color or national origin. Those protections for students extend to schools’ academic programs, admissions, athletics and grading. An example of a Title VI violation would be failing to provide services and classes in a language other than English when they’re needed.

DOE officials are alleging MSU ran counter to this standard when an employee at the university paid to promote job opportunities to a list maintained by a non-profit. In a statement published March 14, McMahon accused the PhD Project of limiting eligibility “based on the race of participants.”

The PhD Project was established in the '90s, and since then its function has been to assist minorities in becoming business professors. The program receives its funding through donations and partnering with universities. As part of that partnership, universities can add jobs to the PhD Project’s job board.

“In 2024, a staff member signed the university up at a cost of $3,000 for the purposes of having unlimited access to the organization's national job posting list,” Ellig wrote in his statement. “It was used to expand the reach of our job postings, in addition to other similarly-situated outlets that are used to post job openings.”

MSU administrators were not aware of any internal complaints regarding the PhD Project, he said, and reiterated the university’s policy of being an equal opportunity employer.

“The university will fully cooperate with the U.S. Department of Education and implement any findings it may make with regards to this issue,” Ellig said.

Along with the latest allegations, there are dozens of pending DoE investigations at Montana’s primary, secondary and post-secondary schools, according to the department’s Office of Civil Rights. Universities across the state have already felt the sting of freezes in federal dollars.

The MSU Exponent, the university’s student newspaper, reported last week that research projects and programs had been affected if not canceled by funding cuts and freezes. The hold on funding has disrupted research, and caused several institutions to hold off on hiring altogether, according to the Associated Press.