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The U.S. Department of Education on Tuesday opened an investigation into Portland Public Schools’ Center for Black Student Excellence, following a December complaint to the department’s Office of Civil Rights from a conservative advocacy group.
The logic behind the investigation, the feds said, is that while “tens of millions” were allocated “exclusively” to Black students for “academic interventions, wraparound support, facilities, and family programs,” several PPS student groups face challenges on par or greater than the district’s Black students. The DOE is acting on the assumption that PPS discriminated against students based on their race. (The district maintains that the CBSE will be available to all of its students.)
Defending Education, the group that lodged the December 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 alleged the CBSE discriminates against students based on their race and thus violates both the law and the Constitution.
The federal department has the ability to escalate complaints into investigations if they believe the complaints have merit. In its Tuesday announcement, the DOE said that it had opened an investigation into the case on the same grounds on which Defending Education had lodged the complaint.
It is important to clarify that PPS, which received $60 million from the 2020 bond for the CBSE, can only spend that money on capital expenditures, meaning the district must find funds for programming related expenses from its general budget.
After years of complications with locating a physical site for the CBSE, the Portland School Board voted unanimously 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 district did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In a December statement to WW on the OCR complaint, PPS’s chief of communications Candice Grose referred to the CBSE as “The Grice Adair Center” (the two wings of the One North building are to be named after two prominent local Black educators.)
“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 said then. “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.”
Early draft plans of the center indicate PPS’s intentions to make the CBSE available to both students and the community. The Chappie East wing is meant to house arts education, professional learning for educators, and community cultural programming. Adair West is envisioned as a space for innovation in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, and will connect students to external learning opportunities.
The DOE’s announcement cites data from the 2021-22 academic year that indicates Black, Native American, Latinx and Pacific Islander students all struggled with third grade reading and lower graduation rates.
Like the original complaint from Defending Education, the DOE cites the Portland School Board’s choice in January 2025 not to allocate $40 million toward a Native Student Success Center as an example of discrimination.
“Civil rights law—and basic fairness—demand that every student, regardless of race, has equal access to educational programs and support. Although students of many races are falling behind, PPS is reserving academic interventions and essential resources exclusively for Black students,” Kimberly Richey, the assistant secretary for civil rights, said in a statement. “Discrimination disguised as ‘equity’ is still discrimination. OCR is committed to vigorously enforcing Title VI to ensure that excellence—not exclusion—defines schools so every child has an opportunity to succeed.”
Sarah Parshall Perry, the vice president and a legal fellow at Defending Education, said in a statement that the organization was “incredibly gratified” that the department’s OCR had opened the investigation.
“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.” she said.
