Woke Portland Public Schools (PPS) are in trouble for blatantly racist programs. I know you’re shocked.
The U.S. Department of Education (ED) has opened an investigation into PPS over its Center for Black Student Excellence (CBSE). ED believes this CBSE could be illegal under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, according to a Feb. 17 press release. PPS has allocated millions of dollars specifically for black students, discriminating on the basis of skin color.
The new ED investigation is in response to a civil rights complaint that advocacy group Defending Education filed last year. Sarah Parshall Perry, vice president and legal fellow at Defending Education, reacted to the investigation in the following statement shared with PJ Media: “We at Defending Education are incredibly gratified that the Department of Education's Civil Rights Office is opening an investigation into Portland Public Schools over its Black Student Success Plan and the millions in associated taxpayer dollars it intends to expend in advancing learning for students of only one race.”
Perry emphasized, “The data is clear: every student, in every demographic, is falling behind in Portland, and the city cannot afford to play politics with race or fast and loose with longstanding civil rights law designed to guarantee equality in education.”
ED’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) agreed that other ethnic or racial groups besides black students in PPS have challenges similar to—or even greater than—those faced by black students, yet are not receiving the same treatment. OCR is especially concerned about a massive $1.2 billion bond that includes tens of millions of dollars for academic interventions, facilities, wraparound support, and family programs all reserved for black students.
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The ironic part is that in districts where schools claim to be focusing specifically on helping minority students, the minority students usually have appalling scores. Obviously the racist programs are not helping anyone—neither those who receive special privileges nor those excluded.
As of 2023, 43% of students in Oregon schools were proficient in English and 30% in math. In 2024, Portland students managed to beat the statewide average at 55% English proficiency and 46% math proficiency, based on Oregon Statewide Assessments. Those are still very bad numbers. It is obvious that black students are not the only ones failing to meet the most basic standards in school, and there should never be academic solutions based on race, only on individual need and objective standards.
ED’s release explained:
CBSE’s guiding principles pledge to “center Blackness unapologetically” by offering black students year-round academic interventions in math and literacy, tutoring, food assistance, and transportation support. Yet PPS data from 2021–2022 shows widespread academic struggles: only 17% of Black students meet third-grade reading proficiency levels, with similarly low rates for Native American students (17.6%) and Pacific Islanders (16.7%). Graduation rates tell a similar story: in 2021-2022, 79.4% of PPS black students graduated from high school, compared to 61.5% of Native Americans and 73.7% of “Latinx” [ie., Hispanic] students. Despite these disparities, the PPS school board rejected a proposal to allocate $40 million to a Native Student Success Center.
This is blatant and probably illegal prejudice.
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