Education Department to Investigate Princeton After Admitting Racism ‘Embedded’ in School

The U.S. Education Department (USED) has informed Princeton University it will be under investigation following an open letter by the school’s president this month announcing “racist assumptions” are “embedded” within the university, the Washington Examiner reported Thursday.

According to the report, USED sent Princeton a letter Wednesday stating the admission of Christopher Eisgruber, the school’s president, that it persists in “racist assumptions” warrants an investigation into possible violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Princeton receives millions of dollars of federal funds and Title VI states “no person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”

The Examiner reported USED has requested records from the school as it begins its investigation into whether Princeton has been receiving the federal funds in violation of Title VI, given its president’s admission of the existence of “systemic racism”:

Based on its admitted racism, the U.S. Department of Education (“Department”) is concerned Princeton’s nondiscrimination and equal opportunity assurances in its Program Participation Agreements from at least 2013 to the present may have been false,” the letter reads. “The Department is further concerned Princeton perhaps knew, or should have known, these assurances were false at the time they were made. Finally, the Department is further concerned Princeton’s many nondiscrimination and equal opportunity claims to students, parents, and consumers in the market for education certificates may have been false, misleading, and actionable substantial misrepresentations in violation of 20 U.S.C. § 1094(c)(3)(B) and 34 CFR 668.71(c). Therefore, the Department’s Office of Postsecondary Education, in consultation with the Department’s Office of the General Counsel, is opening this investigation.”

On September 2, Eisgruber wrote to the school’s community about the steps his administration would be taking to stem the tide of “systemic racism at Princeton and beyond.”

Eisgruber said in his letter that America had “entered a profound national reckoning with racism,” and continued that, while Princeton “has committed itself to becoming more inclusive,” still “racism and the damage it does to people of color nevertheless persist” at the school.

He explained further:

Racist assumptions from the past also remain embedded in structures of the University itself.  For example, Princeton inherits from earlier generations at least nine departments and programs organized around European languages and culture, but only a single, relatively small program in African studies.

Eisgruber added it was necessary to “fight the systemic racism that has for too long damaged the lives of Black, Indigenous, and people of color” at the school, and, to this end, he and his administration would be addressing a list of changes to be made to undo the systemic racism that exists at Princeton.

Among his cabinet’s priorities is the setting of faculty racial quotas.

“[W]e will undertake enhanced efforts to expand diversity of the faculty pipeline, and aspire to increase by 50 percent the number of tenured or tenure-track faculty members from underrepresented groups over the next five years,” Eisgruber wrote.

Additionally, Eisgruber and his administration plan to “recommend principles to govern changes in naming” as well as other campus symbols and icons in order to “diversify Princeton’s institutional narrative and strengthen the welcoming character of the campus.”