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A conservative advocacy group filed a federal civil rights complaint Wednesday against Portland Public Schools’ Center for Black Student Excellence.
Defending Education, the group that lodged the complaint, is an Arlington, Va.-based nonprofit known for targeting diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives by arguing that they violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. In its complaint, the group alleges the CBSE discriminates against students based on their race and thus violates both the law and the Constitution.
The complaint further alleges the district has been fiscally irresponsible in its development of the CBSE. The Portland School Board voted unananimously Dec.2 to authorize the district to move forward with the purchase of the One North building in Albina for the CBSE. The building’s purchase price is $16 million, and the district has estimated an additional $21 million to $25 million will be needed for upgrades and to bring the building up to occupancy. The total estimated cost is under the $60 million Portland voters approved for the CBSE in 2020, when it was folded into that year’s PPS school bond.
But Sarah Perry, vice president of Defending Education, alleges in the complaint that the district has veered from allowable uses for bond funding. Interpreting expenses like initial planning and community engagement as capital expenses is broad, Perry argues, and “the legality of this bond initiative is questionable at best.”
The complaint goes on to outline a number of portions of CBSE planning that offer programming that Perry writes “benefit Black students specifically,” even as Perry argues that the district has acknowledged all its students struggle academically. (Notably, the complaint cites the School Board’s choice in January not to allocate $40 million toward a Native Student Success Center as evidence the district favors some student groups over others.)
If the U.S. Office for Civil Rights finds merit in the complaint, it will launch an investigation. Candice Grose, chief of communications for PPS, says the district has not received any notice from the U.S. Department of Education concerning the specific complaint. Referring to the Center for Black Student Excellence as “The Grice Adair Center” (the two wings that make up One North are to be named after two prominent local Black educators), Grose emphasized programming would be available to all students.
“The Grice Adair Center represents our ongoing commitment to creating a welcoming and supportive environment for all students, not just Black students, to feel seen, valued and heard,” Grose says. “While it was born from a need to address long-standing inequities that have impacted Black learners, its purpose is part of our larger mission to ensure equity and excellence for every student in the district.”
Through the fall, the district faced scrutiny of the CBSE by its own board members over its financial sustainability, given that bond funds cannot be used to finance programming. (In her complaint, Perry raises a concern that PPS faces a $50 million budget shortfall in the upcoming year.) But some district staff and School Board members argued the center was receiving an outsized proportion of scrutiny and that the district had plans to make it work.
“I appreciate that we have a tremendous problem…[but] we have to make that balance,” Dana White, the district’s senior director of real estate and construction, said at a recent board meeting. “That’s the superintendent’s ultimate job. Obviously, the money has to come from somewhere and we’re looking at where we can make cuts for next year and beyond.”
Representatives for the U.S. Department of Education did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
