The Trump administration’s Department of Education announced on Wednesday that it has opened national-origin discrimination investigations into five US universities over what it described as “alleged exclusionary scholarships referencing foreign-born students”.
According to the announcement, the department’s office for civil rights has opened investigations into the University of Louisville, the University of Nebraska Omaha, the University of Miami, the University of Michigan and Western Michigan University.
The department said that the investigations will determine whether these universities are granting scholarships exclusively to students who are recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) program, who came to the US as children, or who are undocumented “in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964’s (Title VI) prohibition against national origin discrimination”.
The investigation stems from complaints submitted by the Legal Insurrection Foundation’s Equal Protection Project, a conservative legal group.
The group alleges in the complaints that certain scholarships at these schools are limited to students with Daca status or who are undocumented, which they argue is in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 “and its implementing regulations by illegally discriminating against students based on their national origin”.
In a post on X announcing the investigations on Wednesday, the education secretary, Linda McMahon, said that “non-citizens should not be given special preference over American citizens for scholarships at American universities”.
In addition to those scholarships, the education department’s office for civil rights said on Wednesday that the investigations would also “examine additional scholarships that appear to exclude students based on other aspects of Title VI, including race and color”.
The education department’s announcement on Wednesday came shortly after the US state department said it had launched a new investigation into Harvard University’s “continued eligibility” as a sponsor in a government-run visa program for international students and professors.
In the announcement, the statement department wrote: “To maintain their privilege to sponsor exchange visitors, sponsors must comply with all regulations, including conducting their programs in a manner that does not undermine the foreign policy objectives or compromise the national security interests of the United States.”
“The investigation will ensure that State Department programs do not run contrary to our nation’s interests,” the announcement added.
Earlier this week, lawyers representing Harvard University and the Trump administration appeared in federal court for a hearing over the administration’s decision to cut billions in federal funding to the university – an action that Harvard has argued is unlawful.
The Trump administration has taken various steps to restrict the entry of foreign students to the US. It has attempted to ban Harvard from enrolling them at all in a move blocked last month by the same federal judge overseeing the case over funding cuts to the university, and announced new rules scrutinizing the social media presence of international students applying for US visas.
