The Trump administration launched an investigation into an Oregon university over multiple racially focused programs critics say run afoul of civil rights law, The Daily Wire has learned. 
The Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services will investigate accusations that the Portland-based Oregon Health and Science University offers programs with built-in “preferences for non-whites.” The investigation comes after a complaint from the Equal Protection Project, an organization devoted to ensuring people of all races are treated fairly. 
HHS told the Equal Protection Project last week that it had “determined that this office has jurisdiction over your allegations” and that it “will initiate an investigation,” according to a letter obtained by The Daily Wire. The letter added that when HHS “has reached a determination regarding your complaint, we will advise you of our findings.”
Oregon Health and Science University recently <a href="https://news.ohsu.edu/2026/07/29/ohsu-posts-dramatic-financial-turnaround-record-research-funding">announced</a> that it received over $400 million in federal research grants for 2026.
The complaint from the Equal Protection Project took issue with multiple programs offered by the university, including its Jump Start Program, Equity Research Program, Center for Learner Diversity and Inclusion, On Track OHSU, Pay it Forward Mentorship Program, and HealthE STEPS Nursing Workforce Diversity Scholarships.
The Jump Start Program is designed for post=baccalaureate scholars to gain research experience. Those who are <a href="https://archive.ph/401BC">encouraged</a> to apply are those defined as “underrepresented in research,” including “those who identify as minorities.” 
Similarly, the Equity Research Program is for those who come from an &#8220;underrepresented minority group” or have another economic hardship. The <a href="https://archive.ph/IB201#selection-739.47-739.178">university</a>’s Center for Learner Diversity and Inclusion “creates programs to advance the academic, career and personal development of underrepresented minority and disadvantaged students.”
The Daily Wire reached out to Oregon Health and Science University for comment on the investigation. 
Cornell Law School Professor William Jacobson, the founder of the Equal Protection Project, told The Daily Wire that the university was deterring people from applying for certain opportunities because they were advertising them for “being for a certain race or a certain ethnicity.” He said he would like to see the programs reformed, not eliminated. 
“Our goal for every time I challenge a program or a scholarship or goal is not to terminate the program or scholarship, it&#8217;s to terminate the discriminatory aspects of it,” Jacobson told The Daily Wire. “Ideally for us they would have to rework these scholarships and programs, and they would have to eliminate the racial and ethnic descriptors as to who it&#8217;s intended for, and they would have to truly, in real life, open it up to everybody.&#8221;
The Trump administration has taken action against racially focused DEI programs, opening up similar investigations into other entities like Arizona State University and the University of California system.

Department Of Health And Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Announces New Health Care Reform Action

Another University Faces Trump Investigation Over ‘Preferences For Non-Whites’

anti-white

Civil Rights

Department of Health and Human Services

Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI)

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Oregon

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The Trump administration announced Monday that it is taking enforcement action against two public school districts accused of concealing students&#8217; gender identity information from parents, warning the districts could face lawsuits and the loss of federal funding for violating federal privacy law.
The Department of Education said it has partnered with the Justice Department to pursue enforcement against Anne Arundel County Public Schools in Maryland. It also gave Ann Arbor Public Schools in Michigan until August 10 to explain why similar action should not move forward. 
The investigations center on the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), which guarantees parents access to their children&#8217;s education records. The Trump administration argues that school policies directing staff to withhold information about a student&#8217;s gender identity or social transition from parents violate those protections.
&#8220;As a mother and a grandmother, it is unconscionable that any school district would hide the most sensitive information about children in their care from their own parents,&#8221; Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a <a href="https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/trump-administration-cracks-down-school-districts-secretly-transitioning-students-and-hiding-it-parents">statement</a>. &#8220;This is not only an affront to basic moral principles, but also to parents&#8217; rights under federal law.&#8221;
&#8220;Today, ED and DOJ are putting districts on notice that we will use every tool available to hold them to account for this egregious behavior,&#8221; she added. &#8220;Under the Trump Administration, ED and DOJ are working together to vigorously uphold parents&#8217; federal protections, and we will work to ensure that no parent is ever kept in the dark about important matters relating to their children.&#8221;
According to the Education Department, its Student Privacy Policy Office received complaints from parents in Anne Arundel County who discovered their daughter was being referred to by male pronouns at school. The parents said they learned about the situation only after receiving an email from school staff.
When the parents sought information about what the school described as their child&#8217;s &#8220;gender transition,&#8221; the principal allegedly refused to provide details while an assistant principal declined to turn over relevant records, prompting the federal investigation. The Education Department said Anne Arundel County improperly classified information about a student&#8217;s so-called &#8220;gender identity&#8221; as confidential medical information that could not be shared with parents. The agency said those practices unlawfully prevented parents from exercising their rights under FERPA.
The action comes weeks after the same parents <a href="https://www.thebanner.com/education/k-12-schools/arundel-schools-transgender-children-policies-lawsuit-6BKCHH25O5HP7FLPPGNF7RQFWU/">filed a federal lawsuit</a> against the district with representation from America First Legal, the conservative organization founded by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller. The lawsuit claims school officials socially transitioned their daughter by using a masculine name and pronouns without notifying or obtaining consent from her parents. The Education Department said it is working with the Justice Department&#8217;s Civil Rights Division to pursue enforcement against the Maryland district, including potential judicial proceedings and termination of federal funding.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said the administration intends to aggressively enforce the law. &#8220;School districts that hide information from parents are violating federal law,&#8221; Dhillon said. &#8220;FERPA is not optional, and any districts that attempt to bypass or distort its requirements should expect immediate federal action.&#8221;
Additionally, the administration found Ann Arbor Public Schools&#8217; policy requiring employees to conceal a student&#8217;s &#8220;transgender status&#8221; from parents likely violates FERPA. Federal officials also questioned the district&#8217;s practice of maintaining records related to a student&#8217;s &#8220;gender identity&#8221; in a separate filing system. 
The Education Department said the cases build on a broader effort by the Trump administration to strengthen parental rights. Earlier this year, the department launched statewide investigations into policies that allegedly concealed students&#8217; &#8220;gender identity&#8221; from parents and issued a finding against the California Department of Education over the use of secret &#8220;gender support plans&#8221; and hidden student records.
In March 2025, the department sent a nationwide <a href="https://studentprivacy.ed.gov/sites/default/files/resource_document/file/Secretary_Comb_SPPO_DCL_Annual%20Notice_0.pdf">letter</a> reminding state education officials that concealing a child&#8217;s &#8220;gender identity&#8221; from parents was a priority enforcement issue under FERPA.
FERPA violations can ultimately result in the loss of federal education funding, though that penalty has historically been used sparingly.

Transgender Symbol and Pencils With The Color of Lgbt Flag

Trump Admin Takes Action Against School Districts Hiding ‘Transgender Status’ From Parents

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A North Carolina school district faces a Trump administration investigation after high school girls accused school officials of doing nothing after they complained about a transgender-identifying male invading their personal spaces. 
The Department of Education told Cabarrus County Schools on Monday that it had opened a Title IX investigation over complaints that biological male students had been allowed to access girls’ bathrooms and locker rooms. Students in the district for months have lambasted school officials for not keeping the spaces separated by sex. 
“The Complainants alleged that the District permits male students to access sex-segregated restrooms and locker rooms for female students and has failed to respond as required to reports of female students being sexually harassed by male students in school restrooms or locker rooms,” the Education Department wrote in a letter obtained by The Daily Wire. 
<iframe style="aspect-ratio: 16/9; max-width: 100%; width: 100%; border: 0; height: auto;" title="DW Player" src="https://public.dailywire.com/preroll-player/embed.html?playback-id=NJImACtyd8qr901jiXzUj00P9jus01iozN02&amp;ad-tag-url=https%3A%2F%2Fpubads.g.doubleclick.net%2Fgampad%2Fads%3Fiu%3D%2F61914415%2Fdw.video.article%26description_url%3Ddailywire.com%26url%3D%26tfcd%3D0%26npa%3D0%26sz%3D640x480%26min_ad_duration%3D5000%26max_ad_duration%3D60000%26gdfp_req%3D1%26unviewed_position_start%3D1%26vpos%3Dpreroll%26output%3Dvast%26plcmt%3D1%26env%3Dvp%26vpa%3Dclick%26vpmute%3D0%26impl%3Ds%26correlator%3D%5Bcachebuster%5D" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
Trista Ruck, a student at Cox Mill High School, said that school officials dismissed her concerns about feeling uncomfortable with a male using the women’s bathroom. She said the principal told students the issue was &#8220;too political to address.&#8221;
“Our school is supposed to make every student safe, but we get ostracized when we discuss this with adults who are supposed to ensure the safety and comfortability at school,” she said in April. “Personally, I try to avoid the restrooms at all costs, but I do use these facilities at times when I really have to.”
The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights will probe whether the district’s policies discriminate based on sex by denying female students access to private intimate spaces. 
To comply with the investigation, the department asked the district to provide documents on its policies related to “gender identity” and any complaints it received from girls about males in their spaces. 
School officials downplayed concerns from parents and students and previously <a href="https://www.wcnc.com/article/news/verify/viral-claim-that-boy-tried-to-watch-young-girl-in-school-restroom-is-false-cabarrus-county-school-district-says/275-e53d0323-7532-4438-901b-79ca4c0ceaec">said</a> it is constrained by laws, stating that “schools may not discriminate against students by denying them access to the bathroom corresponding to their gender identity.”
The Education Department investigation comes after Rep. Addison McDowell (R-NC) wrote a letter on May 7 <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/congressman-urges-trump-admin-to-intervene-after-high-school-girls-say-spaces-invaded-by-boy">urging action</a> against the district. 
“If my daughters were speaking up, I would want leaders in the community to act. It took a lot of courage for these girls to stand up and speak out,&#8221; McDowell told The Daily Wire. &#8220;There appears to have been confusion at the local level about how Title IX protections apply to girls in our schools. I look forward to the Department providing clarity and restoring common sense.&#8221;
The Trump administration said the investigation was part of its efforts to recognize June as “Title IX Month.” 
“Today’s investigation demonstrates that the Trump Administration will not stop pursuing Districts that reportedly subject our women and girls to egregious violations of their privacy and safety,” said Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey. “Under the Trump Administration, no woman or girl will have to fight alone to secure her basic protections, and we will not relent until Title IX is restored to the fullest extent of the law.”

Public shower room with shower cabins. A large, empty public shower room with bright walls. Toilet and locker room of a swimming pool, sports club and fitness center, school, college, dorm or hostel. The concept of hygiene and healthy lifestyle.

Trump Admin Steps In After Female Students Raise Alarm Over School’s Trans Policy

Female Students Raised Alarm Over School's Trans Policy. Trump Admin Now Taking Action.

North Carolina

Title IX

Transgender

There is one thing we can say for certain about the hysterical claims made in the weeks since the Supreme Court’s decision in <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/24-109_21o3.pdf">Louisiana v. Callais</a> that the majority “gutted” the Voting Rights Act (VRA) and is reimplementing “Jim Crow”: those claims are false and dishonest, intended to disguise the partisan — and patronizingly racist — objectives and motivations of the critics.
They believe the color of your skin delineates your political views and how you vote, and they want to use race as the determining factor in drawing up the boundary lines of legislative districts for one purpose, and one purpose only: to elect Democrats. The Court’s majority properly held that misusing race in such a manner violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment — the one person, one vote standard — as well as the Fifteenth Amendment.
Both of those amendments were designed and written to stop racial discrimination. It is about time we lived up to those amendments in full measure. The only thing the majority “gutted” was the abusive, partisan misuse of the Voting Rights Act.
Amidst all of the inflammatory rhetoric from the denizens of the Left and their allies in the media, you may have lost track of what this case was about. After the 2020 Census, the Louisiana legislature redrew its six congressional districts with little change, once again including one district in which black voters were a majority. But in 2022, a federal judge told Louisiana that its failure to add a second black majority district was likely a violation of Section 2 of the VRA, <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/52/10301">52 U.S.C. §10301</a>. A second set of voters then sued, claiming that using race to draw up that second district violated the Equal Protection Clause.
The Supreme Court said they were right in a 6-to-3 decision.
Section 2 prohibits the “denial or abridgment of the right of any citizen” to vote “on account of race or color.” It is probably the most successful law ever implemented by Congress. When it passed in 1965, there was systematic discrimination being practiced against black Americans to prevent them from registering and voting in places like Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and, yes, Louisiana.
But the VRA ended those malicious practices. As Justice Samuel Alito points out in the majority opinion, “vast social change has occurred throughout the country and particularly in the South,” although you’d never know that from the critics who act like it is still 1965.
The machinations used to discriminate are all gone: “voting tests were abolished, disparities in voter registration and turnout due to race were erased, and African-Americans attained political office in record numbers,” as Alito notes. And a “full-blown two-party system has emerged,” including in those areas where the discrimination was the worst.
In fact, it is easier to register and vote today than at any time in our history, including online registration in many states. Racial discrimination that prevents anyone from registering or voting is extremely rare, almost nonexistent.
But with the disappearance of those barriers, Section 2 started being used by left-wing activists to claim that the votes of certain racial minority groups were being “diluted” if they couldn’t elect their “candidates of choice.” Section 2 began to be misinterpreted and misapplied not to stop actual racial discrimination, but to ensure that minority voters who align with the Democrat Party were guaranteed the ability to elect Democratic candidates.
In other words, it was used to secure electoral success based on political affiliation, but only for one side of the political aisle. There was, of course, no concern about the minority of Republican-aligned voters in blue states like Massachusetts who were unable to elect their “candidates of choice.”
As Alito wrote, Section 2 ensures that all voters — regardless of their color — have an equal “chance to achieve a desired result.” It “does not guarantee equal outcomes.” But that is how it was applied by federal judges, specifically the federal judge in Louisiana in 2022, who told the state it had to create a second black majority district that would guarantee that black voters could elect their candidate of choice.
The only evidence that Section 2 had been violated was evidence of intentional racial discrimination that had occurred in Louisiana before the VRA was passed in 1965. The plaintiffs offered no evidence of any current or even recent discrimination in the state. Moreover, the judge relied on the fact that blacks make up about a third of Louisiana’s population, and therefore, the judge reasoned, they were “entitled” to one-third of the congressional seats. But Section 2 bars such proportionality claims, explicitly providing that the VRA does not establish “a right to have members of a protected class elected in numbers equal to their proportion in the population.”
What the Supreme Court did in Callais was to reaffirm that Section 2 bans intentional racial discrimination in voting, which can be proven with evidence that raises a “strong inference” that such discrimination has occurred. It also quite properly updated the 40-year-old factors used to evaluate whether such discrimination occurred, including that to establish a Section 2 violation, evidence of discrimination must be based on “present-day intentional racial discrimination regarding voting,” not what happened decades ago.
Moreover, the Court warned lower-court judges that they must “disentangle race from politics” and ensure that when individuals are voting based on party affiliation, that is not confused with race. Otherwise, Section 2 will be abused by party activists who will repackage partisan gerrymandering as racial gerrymandering: “Failing to account for political considerations in redistricting … can allow plaintiffs to undo a State’s legitimate, nonracial decisions under the banner of § 2.”
Rather than gutting the VRA, this decision reinforces the validity of the Voting Rights Act. It says the VRA is to be used only to remedy racial discrimination in voting in the now increasingly rare instances where it occurs. The holding prevents Section 2’s misuse by partisans to achieve political objectives.
As Alito says, Section 2 “was designed to enforce the Constitution — not collide with it. Unfortunately, lower courts have sometimes applied this Court’s § 2 precedents in a way that forces States to engage in the very race-based discrimination that the Constitution forbids.”
Hopefully, that will now end.
***
Hans von Spakovsky is a Senior Legal Fellow in the Edwin Meese III Institute for the Rule of Law at Advancing American Freedom. He is the former Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Justice.

Voters Cast Ballots On Final Day Of Early Voting In North Carolina

The Left Uses Racist Tactics To Determine Political Representation

DW Opinion

Voting Rights Act

Your understanding of American history likely depends on what textbooks you were handed in school. Unfortunately for today&#8217;s students, textbooks are now driven by politics — and none of them tell the whole story.
Take a gander at the major textbook publishers to see how bad it&#8217;s gotten. Pearson Education <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2025/09/textbook-bias-is-a-real-problem/">recently launched</a> an initiative called Pride 365, the aim of which is to teach gay pride every day of the year. Houghton Mifflin went all-in on Black Lives Matter, and McGraw Hill has an &#8220;Equity Advisory Board.&#8221;
Unsurprisingly, textbook manufacturers that have embraced leftism to this extent are not portraying American history in a positive light. One popular AP U.S. History textbook <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/us/anti-trump-american-history-textbook-blatantly-biased-critics-say">instructs</a> students that President Donald Trump&#8217;s election was racist. Another <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2025/09/textbook-bias-is-a-real-problem/">claims</a> that the American dream is a &#8220;myth&#8221; and says the United States is one of the most unequal countries in the world.
Pick up a high school history textbook at random, and you&#8217;ll find some version of the same narrative: the country was founded by slave owners and built on stolen Indian land. Democrat savior Franklin Delano Roosevelt saved America from Republican boogeyman Herbert Hoover&#8217;s Great Depression with his New Deal.
With textbooks like these, it&#8217;s no wonder American children are quick to be ashamed of their country and accept leftist ideas and Democratic policies as inherently good and right. As long as these views dominate the American mainstream, Americans will think it&#8217;s wrong to love their country and its history.
Enter Matt Walsh.
Beginning this year, the Daily Wire host has been working to tell the American story in his groundbreaking <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/real-history-with-matt-walsh">series</a>, &#8220;Real History With Matt Walsh.&#8221; Walsh doesn&#8217;t shy away from complicated chapters in American history — the series has thus far tackled <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/rhs-260118?elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+Show+Episodes+Carousel">slavery</a>, the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/rhs-260322-civil-war-sub?elementPosition=2&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+Show+Episodes+Carousel">Civil War</a>, and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/rhs-260222?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+Show+Episodes+Carousel">American Indians</a> — but lets the facts speak for themselves. The goal is not to make viewers ashamed of the United States, but to better understand what really happened.
His latest installment, out now exclusively on DailyWire+, tackles the history of the Civil Rights movement. It’s been presented as one of the most successful movements in American history, reversing decades of racism against black Americans and laying the groundwork for racial equality.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/real-history-ep-4-civil-rights-pt1?contentProgram=Real%20History%20with%20Matt%20Walsh&amp;contentType=ShowEpisode&amp;elementPosition=2&amp;location=Home%20Tab&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Home%20Featured%20Carousel">WATCH: THE REAL HISTORY OF CIVIL RIGHTS</a>
<iframe loading="lazy" title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TTIXdyk4RL0?si=LXA54jAflmqBAHva" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
But is any of that true? Or did the Civil Rights movement actually set the country on the wrong track? Was America the racial hellscape we were taught it was before the country passed the Civil Rights Act, or was it actually better than it is today? 
Take Martin Luther King Jr. He&#8217;s now one of the most famous figures in American history, with a federal holiday dedicated to honoring the assassinated activist. He won the Nobel Peace Prize. Is MLK really who we think he is? Was the movement he led actually about non-violence?
&#8220;He had a dream — just not the dream you thought it was,&#8221; Walsh says in a trailer for the episode. &#8220;Were his true aims a color-blind society, or something far more radical? Who bankrolled him? What unfolded behind the scenes in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963? Was civil disobedience actually peaceful?&#8221;
Walsh notes that he was unable to play a clip from King&#8217;s famous &#8220;I Have A Dream&#8221; speech because King&#8217;s estate has a habit of suing news outlets that play clips from the speech.
&#8220;What they&#8217;re doing makes it very difficult to judge Martin Luther King Jr. not by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character,&#8221; Walsh says.
&#8220;King&#8217;s movement fundamentally transformed our country and our system of government,&#8221; he adds. &#8220;These questions demand answers, and as Americans we are entitled to a full accounting of King&#8217;s movement.&#8221;
Walsh sets out to answer those questions. Watch Part I of &#8220;A New Constitution&#8221; now, exclusively on DailyWire+.
<a href="https://get.dailywire.com/real-history/?utm_campaign=realhistory&amp;utm_medium=editorial&amp;utm_source=article">Not a DailyWire+ member? Join today to access the entire Real History series and more.</a>

Screenshot

Ditch The Old History Textbooks, Watch Real History With Matt Walsh

Martin Luther King Jr.

Matt Walsh

Special Reporting

The Trump administration opened an investigation on Monday into a historic all-women’s college that admits gender-confused men.
The Department of Education confirmed in a <a href="https://defendinged.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Office-for-Civil-Rights-Case-Number-01-25-2398-Smith-College-Parshall-Perry-5-4-26.pdf">letter</a> that it had launched a probe into whether Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, was violating Title IX. The investigation comes almost one year <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/all-womens-college-breaking-the-law-by-admitting-trans-identifying-men-complaint">after</a> watchdog organization Defending Education filed a civil rights complaint over its transgender policies. 
“The complaint alleges that the College, one of the largest women’s colleges in the United States, discriminates against women on the basis of sex by admitting males who identify as women (‘self-identified transgender women’) and by permitting male students to use intimate facilities designated for women,” the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights wrote in a letter on Monday to Defending Education. “[The Office of Civil Rights] is opening the complaint for investigation.”
The office will determine whether there are any merits to Defending Education’s complaint, which was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/all-womens-college-breaking-the-law-by-admitting-trans-identifying-men-complaint">first reported</a> on by The Daily Wire in June 2025. 
The complaint said that the school violates federal policy by allowing males who identify as females to take the place of females in admissions. Smith College only admitted about 22% of applicants for the 2024-2025 school year. 
The stated policies make it clear that the historically all-women’s college allows men to enter so long as they identify as transgender. The decision to admit males was first made in 2015 after Smith <a href="https://www.smith.edu/president-kathleen-mccartney/letters/2014-15/admission-policy-announcement" target="_blank" rel="noopener">conducted</a> a year-long study group on the topic. 
“People who identify as women — cis, trans, and nonbinary women — are eligible to apply to Smith,” the college <a href="https://www.smith.edu/your-campus/offices-services/equity-inclusion/gender-identity-expression">explains</a>. “Smith’s policy is one of self-identification. The applicant’s affirmation of identity is sufficient.”
Smith also says that it has an “all-gender locker room in the athletic facilities” and is working on making more multi-stall “all-gender” bathrooms. 
Defending Education Vice President Sarah Parshall Perry said she looked forward to the department&#8217;s investigation. 
&#8220;Smith College has a longstanding reputation as a women&#8217;s college of exclusive excellence. But that hasn&#8217;t prevented it from falling victim to the fiction of &#8216;transgender&#8217; womanhood,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Admitting men who feel like women means that the institution — formerly one of the nation&#8217;s prestigious &#8216;Seven Sisters&#8217; all-women&#8217;s colleges — is no longer for women only.&#8221;

A brick wall sign with SMITH COLLEGE.

Top Women’s College Admitted Gender-Confused Men. Now The Feds Are Involved.

Massachusetts

Guidelines at the University of Washington allowing gender-confused men to use women’s bathrooms violate federal law, according to a civil rights complaint obtained by The Daily Wire.  
A <a href="https://defendinged.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/UWashDEComplaint043026.pdf">complaint</a>, filed Thursday by Defending Education, accused the university of violating Title IX regulations that protect single-sex spaces such as bathrooms and changing areas. 
It points to university <a href="https://hr.uw.edu/diversity/transgender-resources/transgender-resources-for-uw-employees/">policies</a> stating that individuals are allowed to use facilities in line with their “gender identity” rather than their biological sex. 
“The University of Washington eschews these longstanding and unequivocal principles through its administration of dedicated LGBTQ scholarships, its bathroom facility policies that open private spaces to anyone on the basis of self-professed gender identity, and its pronoun policies that punish students for recognizing biological reality,” said the <a href="https://defendinged.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/UWashDEComplaint043026.pdf">complaint</a>, which was first obtained by The Daily Wire.
Defending Education called for the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights to investigate the university.
The complaint cites a university document called “Transgender Resources for UW Employees,” which <a href="https://hr.uw.edu/diversity/transgender-resources/transgender-resources-for-uw-employees/">states</a> individuals are “welcome to use the restrooms, locker rooms, and changing rooms aligned with your gender or whichever choice you are most comfortable with.” It also references a university webpage that <a href="https://hss.washington.edu/building-management/all-gender-restrooms/">lists</a> “all-gender restrooms.” 
“This presumably forces female UW students who attend class in the building to share bathrooms with male students, employees, and even guests,” the complaint said. 
&#8220;The UW is committed to following federal law and will respond through appropriate channels if we are contacted by the DOE,&#8221; the University of Washington told The Daily Wire. 
Defending Education Vice President Sarah Parshall Perry told The Daily Wire that the policies directly conflict with guidance from the Trump administration, interpreting Title IX as requiring sex-separated private spaces. 
“The University of Washington — like too many other institutions of higher education in blue states — is engaged in what can only be described as a standoff with the Administration over the meaning of civil rights law,” she said. “Despite unambiguous federal language in Title IX, its implementing regulations, and related executive guidance, UW believes that ‘sex’ and ‘gender identity’ are the same. They most assuredly are not, and the Supreme Court has never held otherwise.”
The complaint also highlights the university’s overall promotion of transgender activism, including <a href="https://depts.washington.edu/safcom/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/FY-26-Award-Q-Center.pdf">funding</a> a center that <a href="https://qcenter.washington.edu/services/engender/">provides</a> free “tucking underwear” and “stand to pee” devices.
Defending Education filed the complaint the same day it launched its new Center for Litigation and Legal Policy, which will focus on filing administrative complaints, submitting legal briefs, and tracking developments in education-related law and policy. 
Perry told The Daily Wire the center would be “dedicated to identifying civil rights and civil liberties violations wherever we find them on campuses across the country.”

Major University Slapped With Civil Rights Complaint In Trans Bathroom Showdown

University of Washington

In recent years, sharp-eyed parents and investigative reporters have exposed the racial resentment and antisemitism prevalent in DEI. But as public opinion and policymaking turn against this racial discrimination in disguise, a large association of private schools continues to push the radical agenda.
If the biased activity at these elite schools remains unchecked, legal advocates and policymakers will be fighting the same civil rights battles with the next generation of college students.
Today’s battles are certainly yielding good fruit. Lawsuits exposing segregation in schools under DEI’s banner have prompted state and federal lawmakers to reinforce civil rights laws. These laws have helped snuff out mandated “affinity groups” (where participants are separated by race, ethnicity, and/or sex), illegal hiring quotas, and doctrinaire DEI statements required by so-called diversity staff in K-12 schools and universities.
Curiously, the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS), a K-12 private school association, is not moved by the lawsuits and new legislation — nor by DEI’s racial preferences. Later this month, on <a href="https://www.nais.org/events/nais-meetup-for-dei-practitioners-8">April 29</a>, NAIS will even hold a “meetup” for DEI staff working at the association’s institutions.
NAIS is a membership organization for private schools. The group holds conferences and posts job openings for its member institutions on its website and otherwise provides resources on what NAIS deems as best practices.
Some of the “practices,” though, are little more than exercises in segregation. Member schools tout race-based <a href="https://www.merion-mercy.com/about/blog-posts/single-blog/~board/blog/post/what-is-an-affinity-group-and-why-do-they-matter">affinity groups</a> on their <a href="https://www.tescharlotte.org/diversity/affinity-groups.cfm">websites</a>, and NAIS advertises diversity staff positions at its member schools via its <a href="https://careers.nais.org/jobs?keywords=diversity&amp;place=">job bank</a>.
Institutions infused with DEI crowd out competing opinions and create radical echo chambers of a biased orthodoxy. Small wonder that NAIS had to issue an apology in 2024 when <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/15/nyregion/antisemitism-conference-private-schools.html">speakers</a> at one of the association’s DEI events “characterized Israel’s war in Gaza as a genocide and the establishment of the state of Israel as a racist project.”
The American Jewish Committee and Prizmah, an organization for Jewish day schools, were among the groups that wrote to NAIS, saying, “The pervasiveness of this rhetoric and the absence of any alternate perspectives created an atmosphere that was hostile for many Jewish students and faculty members in attendance.”
In 2025, NAIS <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/04/12/us-news/private-school-group-axes-dei-events-over-political-landscape/">canceled</a> its “People of Color Conference,&#8221; but resources on its website suggest DEI remains a priority. NAIS simply <a href="https://www.nais.org/events/gather">renamed</a> the conference, now calling it the “Gather: A Convening for Renewal and Growth, Belonging, and Impact.” This title sounds benign, but NAIS specifically describes the event as a reinvention of its People of Color meeting. The conference will feature more “affinity group work,” as well as sessions on “inclusion and belonging,” a new title for “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
NAIS remains out of step with civil rights laws. The U.S. Department of Education has been ferreting out racial discrimination in K-12 schools across the country. In February, the agency announced it is investigating Portland public schools because the district operates a racially <a href="https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-educations-office-civil-rights-initiates-title-vi-investigation-portland-public-schools">segregated</a> academic program.
The federal agency has opened similar cases over the last year. In 2025, the Education Department canceled some $600 million in grants to schools for teacher training because the grant applications contained racial preferences, some in the form of DEI initiatives.
State lawmakers in Arkansas, Ohio, and Kentucky <a href="https://datavisualizations.heritage.org/education/dei-a-state-legislation-tracker/">adopted</a> prohibitions on DEI in 2025, following earlier legislative activity in Florida, Idaho, and Texas. Today, there are nearly two dozen states with such legislation.
NAIS member schools are preparing the next generation of college students, likely students at elite universities. Faculty and staff at schools like Harvard and Columbia have been among the worst violators of civil rights, allowing antisemitism to persist. DEI offices on these campuses and others have done nothing to stop such activity. Just last month, the Education Department opened yet <a href="https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-educations-office-civil-rights-opens-two-new-probes-harvard-university-continued-discrimination-campus">another</a> investigation into Harvard for racial discrimination.
Independent schools are private institutions, but that does not exempt them from all civil rights laws nor does it excuse antisemitism. Racial discrimination should be exposed to withering scrutiny in public schools, universities, and yes, even private schools.
* * *
Jonathan Butcher is Acting Director of the Center for Education at The Heritage Foundation.

Trump Administration Freezes Federal Funding To Harvard And Threatens School’s Tax-Exempt Status

Elite Schools Insist It’s About ‘Belonging’ — Critics Say It’s Discrimination All Over Again

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BIPOC

Education

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When I was in college, I passed the César Chávez statue every day on my walk to class at the University of Texas. Now, César Chávez is the name of the road I take to work. 
For years, Chávez was presented as the figurehead for Mexican Americans, a symbol we were expected to revere. But he represented a collectivist ideology that perpetuated ethnic tribalism. After the New York Times broke the story of his sexual abuse of young girls, this false idol is finally toppling. My only hope is that he is not replaced by another.
Chávez has long been celebrated as a symbol of the Civil Rights era and as a champion of labor unions in America. He co-founded the United Farm Workers (UFW) union to fight for better conditions for migrant laborers. But in truth, he exploited the very people he claimed to protect, while tying Mexican Americans to socialist ideology. He carefully crafted a public image as a family man devoted to Catholic social teaching, but the reality was much darker.
Chávez’s philosophy echoes Marxist rhetoric about the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. At a UFW convention in 1981, Chávez <a href="https://reason.com/2013/07/30/harvest-of-power/#:~:text=Some%20of%20these%20features%20include:%20*%20the,under%20the%20ALRA%20subject%20to%20ALRB%20regulations.">proclaimed:</a> 
<blockquote>I would not take one cup of coffee from a grower [farmer]… There&#8217;s not a good one. I hate them. A few presents, a little talk, then the noose. That’s how capitalism works.</blockquote>
It isn’t just his rhetoric that sounds alarm bells. Early in his career, he worked with Saul Alinsky (the community organizer who defined the modern leftist playbook in “Rules for Radicals”). Chávez and the UFW later implemented Alinsky’s tactics, fostering confrontational, divisive organizing.
Then, there is the recent revelation of his <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/left-wing-icon-accused-of-serially-sexually-abusing-young-girls?author=Nathan+Gay&amp;category=undefined&amp;elementPosition=15&amp;row=3&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+News&amp;rowType=Vertical+Carousel&amp;title=Left-Wing+Icon+Accused+Of+Serially+Sexually+Abusing+Young+Girls">extensive sexual abuse</a> of minors. The behavior is not distinct from other far-Left figures. From Josef Stalin to Mao to Kim Jong-il, communist and socialist leaders often share a troubling connection to sexual predation. We should not be surprised that evil ideology attracts evil people.
If the warning signs around Chávez have existed for decades, why did he become the face of an entire ethnicity in America? Partly, because he was effective at mobilizing Mexican Americans in California, using rhetoric that created a lasting “us vs. them” mentality. But how did that ideology extend to Texas?
Chávez never belonged in Tejano heritage the same way he does in Chicano culture. The Chicano culture and movement are a direct outgrowth of the California Hispanic labor movement in the ‘60s and ‘70s. On the other hand, the Tejano culture traces back to the Mexican settlers of Texas prior to Texas Independence and is a component of what created the Texas identity. 
That history is also tied to farming and a cowboy ethos that is incompatible with Chávez’s ideology. Texas agriculture thrived because of ranchers like my ancestors, who embraced a free-market approach, not because of unions or collectivist movements.
Before the New York Times exposé, one could argue that Chávez fought for Mexican Americans and deserved gratitude. Yet his legacy has encouraged a troubling mindset: To be loyal to one’s Hispanic heritage, one must embrace left-wing ideology. On campus, I was often labeled a “race traitor” at conservative events, accused of “wanting white approval,” or dismissed as “too white-passing” to comment on border and immigration issues.
The type of tribalism promoted by Chávez is just like any other kind of identity politics, limiting and stereotyping the people it is intended to empower. In a political climate in which Texas Hispanics are considering Republicans on the ballot, it is clear why the Left is feeling threatened.
So why is a street in Austin named after César Chávez? Why did his statue watch me as I walked to class? The answer is clear: ethnic tokenism. It was fitting for Bill Clinton to award him a Presidential Medal of Freedom and for Joe Biden to display his bust in the Oval Office. Chávez represents the Hispanic worker the political Left wishes we all were: obedient to a union boss and beholden to collectivist ideology.
The UFW announced it will not be celebrating César Chávez Day this year amid the allegations. The idol all Hispanics were once expected to adore is finally falling from his pedestal. My hope is that we do not replace him with another.
* * *
Ariana Guajardo is the Video Production Manager at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. She is the creator and host of &#8220;The Sweet Tea Series&#8221; and co-host of &#8220;The Hard Country,&#8221; where she and Joshua Treviño examine the history and modern tensions shaping U.S.–Mexico relations.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

United Farmer Workers Union Distances Itself From Founder Cesar Chavez After “Troubling Allegations”

The Left Hid César Chávez’s Rapes And Turned Him Into A Saint

The Left Hid César Chávez's Rapes And Turned Him Into A Saint

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Hispanics

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Civil rights activist and two-time Democrat presidential candidate Jesse Jackson died Tuesday. He was 84. 
Jackson’s family announced his death on Tuesday morning. A cause of death was not provided, but Jackson <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/jesse-jackson-on-life-support-after-being-hospitalized-for-neurological-condition">was placed</a> on life support in November after he was hospitalized over a neurological condition called progressive supranuclear palsy. In 2017, Jackson announced that he had Parkinson&#8217;s disease. 
“It is with profound sadness that we announce the passing of Civil Rights leader and founder of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the Honorable Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr. He died peacefully on Tuesday morning, surrounded by his family. His unwavering commitment to justice, equality, and human rights helped shape a global movement for freedom and dignity,” his family said. “Our father was a servant leader — not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world.”
Jackson was born in Greenville, South Carolina, on October 8, 1941. He graduated from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College in 1964. Soon after, he began working closely with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and was heavily involved in King&#8217;s Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Jackson was with King in Memphis in 1968 when he was assassinated.
Working for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Jackson ran &#8220;Operation Breadbasket&#8221; in Chicago. The <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/operation-breadbasket">program</a> was meant to create economic opportunities for black people and would encourage boycotts of companies that did not “negotiate&#8221; for a &#8220;more equitable employment practice.&#8221;
He left the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1971 after he was suspended for “administrative improprieties and repeated acts of violation of organizational policy.”
Jackson ran for president in both 1984 and 1988, seeking the Democratic nomination. He embraced far-left policies and opposed the agenda of former President Ronald Reagan. He won about 18% of the vote in 1984 and won 11 states four years later. His 1984 campaign hit a snag after he <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/obituaries/rev-jesse-jackson-civil-rights-activist-dies-rcna42408">used</a> a slur to refer to Jewish people and New York City.
Throughout the 1990s, Jackson was elected to lobby for statehood for Washington, D.C. Jackson founded the Rainbow PUSH Coalition in 1996, which grew out of his 1984 presidential campaign that united minorities opposed to Reagan&#8217;s policies.
In 2000, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by former President Bill Clinton.
In recent years, Jackson has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/jesse-jackson-electoral-college-must-be-abolished-paul-bois">advocated</a> ending the Electoral College and has sharply criticized President Donald Trump. Jackson called Trump a &#8220;racist&#8221; and a &#8220;weapon of mass destruction.&#8221;
“The language of Donald Trump has been a source of shame for our nation. Humiliation and untruth,” Jackson <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/flashback-when-jesse-jackson-praised-president-paul-bois">said</a> back in 2018. In 2020, Jackson endorsed the presidential campaign of leftist Bernie Sanders.
Reacting to the news of his death, Trump said that he knew Jackson before becoming president and had provided office space for the Rainbow Coalition at his building in New York.
&#8220;I knew him well, long before becoming President. He was a good man, with lots of personality, grit, and &#8216;street smarts.&#8217; He was very gregarious — Someone who truly loved people! Despite the fact that I am falsely and consistently called a Racist by the Scoundrels and Lunatics on the Radical Left, Democrats ALL, it was always my pleasure to help Jesse along the way,&#8221; Trump wrote on Truth Social.
&#8220;He had much to do with the Election, without acknowledgment or credit, of Barack Hussein Obama, a man who Jesse could not stand. He loved his family greatly, and to them I send my deepest sympathies and condolences. Jesse will be missed!&#8221; Trump added.
He is survived by his wife, Jacqueline, and their children, Santita Jackson, former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., Jonathan Luther Jackson, Yusef DuBois Jackson, and Jacqueline Lavinia Jackson Jr. He had another daughter, Ashley Jackson, from another woman. 
A public ceremony for Jackson will be held in Chicago. 
This is a breaking story. Refresh for updates.

African American Activist Jesse Jackson Speaking at Podium

Civil Rights Activist Jesse Jackson Dead At 84 — The Political Past He Leaves Behind

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Monday was Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a day celebrating the legacy of a man who is famous in the United States for saying that we ought to judge people based on the content of their character, rather than the color of their skin.
The story of the Civil Rights Act is one of Southern Democrats largely opposing the Civil Rights Movement.
Ever since then, Democrats have been searching for the next Civil Rights Movement. We&#8217;ve seen many iterations of this over the course of the subsequent decades. We saw a quasi-civil rights movement pushed by the Left with regard to gender and sexuality, the idea that women had to be freed from the predations of the patriarchy, similar to the way that black people required freeing from the predations of Jim Crow.
That, of course, was a bad analogy.
Then we heard the same thing with regard to LGBTQ+-, that this was the new civil rights movement.
But now, Democrats seem to have hit upon the idea that the new civil rights movement is illegal immigration.
They believe illegal immigrants must be allowed to stay in the United States, and enforcement of the laws against illegal immigration is itself a form of white supremacy.
The Democrats are stretching on this one because they’re running out of examples of true policy-driven widespread American racism. The demand is higher than the supply.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2350-the-left-says-opposing-illegal-immigration-is-white-supremacy?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-974957" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1024x171.webp 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-300x50.webp 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-768x128.webp 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-1536x256.webp 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/511983dad25841c8b1ec058d75769bbe-2048x341.webp 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
Here’s one example: Eric Holder, the former attorney general of the United States, <a href="https://x.com/DailyCaller/status/2013289466098495727?s=20">suggested on Monday</a> that the Voting Rights Act is under a serious and abiding threat. Not only that, he suggested that there was the threat that America was about to be resegregated by the Trump administration, saying, “We are experiencing unprecedented mid-decade gerrymandering attempts designed to disproportionately disenfranchise black and brown voters. As the president desperately clings to power like an insecure dictator, there is a concerted effort to resegregate America.”
There is not a “concerted effort to segregate America.” No one who is sentient in America believes that there is. No one is worried that black Americans are now going to be forced to drink out of different water fountains, or be forced to go to different schools, or that we are going to resegregate restaurants or anything like that.
This is a wild overstatement. The reality is that the story of the post-Jim Crow racial situation in America was one of increasing good relations between the races.
That was true all the way up to 2013, according to the polling data. A vast majority of both black Americans and white Americans, up until roughly 2013, thought that American race relations were improving steadily, and that they had improved markedly since the 1960s.
Then we slipped into the BLM era and the late stages of the Obama presidency. That sank Americans’ perceptions of race relations.
But that does not mean that black Americans are being held underfoot by white Americans, that white supremacy rules the roost these days.
Thus, Democrats are looking for their new civil rights movement. They need another excuse for why they ought to be in charge, why they have the moral high ground.
That&#8217;s a hard case to make. The Democratic Party has lost the moral high ground on a wide variety of issues: It has become not only the abortion-on-demand party, but the Celebrate Your Abortion party. The Democratic Party has become a party that cannot explain to you why a woman isn&#8217;t a man and a man isn&#8217;t a woman. It has become the party of full-scale open borders, and so now they are going to attempt to cram the illegal immigration issue into the civil rights discussion.
And it won’t work.

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The Left Says Opposing Illegal Immigration Is White Supremacy

Ben Shapiro

Voting Rights

The Justice Department will no longer pursue civil rights lawsuits based on “disparate impact theory,” the Trump administration announced Tuesday.
The move comes after 50 years of government policy that encouraged lawsuits against “race neutral” policies without showing evidence of actual racial discrimination, the department <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/department-justice-rule-restores-equal-protection-all-civil-rights-enforcement">said</a>. Disparate impact theory is a framework that often assumes discrimination when there are different outcomes for different groups of people, even if there is no explicit discriminatory practice in place.
“For decades, the Justice Department has used disparate-impact liability to undermine the constitutional principle that all Americans must be treated equally under the law,” said Attorney General Pam Bondi. “No longer. This Department of Justice is eliminating its regulations that for far too long required recipients of federal funding to make decisions based on race.”
The Justice Department issued a rule removing disparate impact from consideration under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VI prevents entities that discriminate on the basis of race, sex, religion, and national origin from receiving federal money or support.
“The prior ‘disparate impact’ regulations encouraged people to file lawsuits challenging racially neutral policies, without evidence of intentional discrimination,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “Our rejection of this theory will restore true equality under the law by requiring proof of actual discrimination, rather than enforcing race- or sex-based quotas or assumptions.”
The change comes after President Donald Trump <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-takes-sledgehammer-to-dei-in-latest-round-of-executive-orders-targeting-education">signed</a> an <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/restoring-equality-of-opportunity-and-meritocracy/">executive order</a> in April that directed the federal government to stop using disparate impact theory in government policy and regulations. The order defined disparate impact theory as the “presumption” that “unlawful discrimination exists where there are any differences in outcomes in certain circumstances among different races, sexes, or similar groups, even if there is no facially discriminatory policy or practice or discriminatory intent involved, and even if everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed.”
Trump said that this theory undermines America’s values of meritocracy and a colorblind society while also violating the Constitution.
“It is the policy of the United States to eliminate the use of disparate-impact liability in all contexts to the maximum degree possible to avoid violating the Constitution, Federal civil rights laws, and basic American ideals,” Trump wrote.
Last year, President Joe Biden’s Justice Department was <a href="https://www.justice.gov/crt/case-document/notice-injunction-louisiana-v-epa-wd-la">blocked</a> from enforcing disparate impact claims against Louisiana.

Justice Department Holds Press Conference On Complaint Filed Under FACE Act

Justice Department Ends Policy That Promoted Dubious Racial Discrimination Suits

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