The University of Oregon was one of 45 higher education institutions investigated by the Trump Administration for its relationship with the PhD Project.
Courtesy of University of Oregon
The University of Oregon is among dozens of higher education institutions across the nation that have agreed to cut ties with The PhD Project, an organization established more than 30 years ago to help Black, Indigenous and other students of color earn doctorate degrees.
The move is part of the Trump administration’s campaign to end diversity programs in higher education.
The PhD Project was a little-known nonprofit group until it caught the attention of conservative strategists last year.
University partnerships with the organization became the focus of an investigation of 45 institutions — including UO — by the U.S. Department of Education last year. The Republican administration has been targeting school diversity programs, which it says discriminate against white and Asian American students.
The investigation, opened in March 2025, has resulted in 31 universities agreeing to end partnerships with the group, the department’s Office for Civil Rights said Thursday. Negotiations are continuing with 14 additional schools, it said.
UO is not included in the federal government’s list of settlements on the matter. But documents obtained by OPB show that the university signed and sent a similar resolution agreement to the civil rights office in early October 2025.
UO spokesperson Angela Seydel said the university has not heard from the Education Department since then.
“We consider the matter resolved,” Seydel said in an email to OPB.
The Education Department did not respond to questions about UO’s investigation status.
The department said in its statement that The PhD Project “unlawfully limits eligibility based on the race of participants” and that institutions partnering with it violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin in education programs and activities that receive federal money.
“This is the Trump effect in action: institutions of higher education are agreeing to cut ties with discriminatory organizations, recommitting themselves to abiding by federal law, and restoring equality of opportunity on campuses across the nation,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said.
Many of the schools promptly cut ties with The PhD Project after the investigation was opened, in order to avoid entanglements with the administration. It had undertaken the inquiries after warning schools they could lose federal money over “race-based preferences.”
The PhD Project is one of many nonprofits that helps underrepresented groups gain access to higher education.
“The PhD Project was founded with the goal of providing more role models in the front of business classrooms and this remains our goal today,” the organization said in a statement Thursday. The website says it has “helped more than 1,500 members earn their doctoral degree.”
The Office for Civil Rights’ investigation found that UO’s partnership with the group did violate Title VI.
Seydel said the university’s affiliation with The PhD Project was minimal. Investigation documents show a relationship with UO during the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 academic years. During that time the university sent two employees to a PhD Project recruitment event. One student attended a conference without financial assistance from UO.
The group of 31 colleges listed by the department included major public research universities such as Arizona State, Ohio State and the University of Michigan, along with prestigious private schools including Yale, Duke and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
MIT, like many of the schools cited in the investigation, had paid The PhD Project “a nominal fee” to participate in the group’s university fairs or conferences, allowing MIT to send representatives to answer questions about attending their school, spokesperson Kimberly Allen said.
MIT informed the government in April 2025 it had ended its participation in such conferences and was notified months later that the Office for Civil Rights had found it in violation of Title VI. The school signed a “resolution agreement” with the department about a week ago to resolve the matter “but explicitly did not admit any liability, wrongdoing or violation of any law or regulation,” Allen said.
“The University became a member of the PhD Project to have access to the PhD Project’s member directory and applicant database, to be able to recruit a larger pool of qualified applicants for faculty positions,” spokesperson David Dodds said in a statement.
Related: Oregon colleges and universities are not wavering amid federal attacks on DEI
The University of Utah said it had a table at annual conferences hosted by the nonprofit in the 2024-25 school year and two previous years. It cut ties with the project in October after settling with the department, university spokesperson Rebecca Walsh said.
Out of 170 Ph.D. students admitted to Utah’s business school over the past 14 years, just two were involved through The PhD Project, Walsh said.
The Education Department said that all of the 31 universities have also agreed to review partnerships with other organizations “to identify any that violate Title VI by restricting participation based on race.”
Over the past year, the administration has targeted a wide range of practices that it has labeled as diversity, equity and inclusion.
