University of Chicago drops PhD Project partnership after US Education Department civil-rights pressure

The University of Chicago has ended its relationship with the PhD Project, a nonprofit launched in 1994 to encourage more Black and Brown students to pursue business PhDs, after the Trump administration’s Education Department signaled that the program’s eligibility rules amount to illegal racial discrimination.

According to WBEZ, the Department of Education said Thursday that Chicago was among 31 colleges that have “severed” ties with the PhD Project following Office for Civil Rights (OCR) investigations. The department framed the outcome as a compliance win: schools not only cut ties but also agreed to review other partnerships to ensure no programs “restrict participation based on race.” Education Secretary Linda McMahon, in the department’s press release cited by WBEZ, urged other institutions to follow.

The university’s statement was notably managerial: it ended the relationship “before the school was notified” of an investigation and emphasized its “obligation to prohibit unlawful discrimination,” without explaining why it withdrew or whether it believes the PhD Project’s model violates federal law. That’s the modern campus in miniature: principles are eternal, partnerships are optional, and the only binding creed is “compliance.”

OCR’s theory of the case is clear. If a pipeline program explicitly limits participation based on race, then a university’s partnership can be treated as participation in a discriminatory scheme—particularly for institutions receiving federal funds. This is the same logic that has been expanding since the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision restricting race-based admissions: once the admissions lever is constrained, enforcement pressure shifts to adjacent “pipeline” mechanisms—mentorship networks, fellowships, recruiting consortia, and professional-development tracks—where selection criteria are often more explicit.

WBEZ notes that the administration’s broader anti-DEI push has not always survived judicial review; the Education Department recently ended a directive that sought to limit DEI initiatives after a federal judge ruled it unlawful. But the PhD Project campaign uses a different tool: civil-rights enforcement rather than sweeping guidance. It’s slower, more targeted, and harder to headline as “banned DEI,” which may be the point.

The episode also clarifies how universities now design “diversity” programs as legally sensitive infrastructure. These initiatives are frequently built as multi-stage pipelines—identification, mentorship, funding, placement—where the most legally vulnerable point is the eligibility gate. When that gate becomes a liability (or merely a litigation magnet), institutions can keep the rhetoric while swapping the mechanism: “diversify” becomes “broaden access,” “racial equity” becomes “opportunity,” and the same administrative apparatus persists under a different risk profile.

The PhD Project says it will continue despite losing university partners, describing its mission as building a “broader talent pipeline” via networking and mentorship, per WBEZ. The state’s intervention may not end identity-based sorting; it may simply force it into more opaque forms—where fewer people can see the rules, and more people are paid to interpret them.