A Washington D.C. think tank with close ties to the Trump administration has asked the Office of Civil Rights of the United States Department of Education to investigate Oak Park and River Forest High School District 200 claiming that OPRF may be violating federal law by using race as a factor in its hiring practices and in allocating educational resources and determining eligibility for some scholarships awarded by two groups with close connections to OPRF.
The American First Policy Institute, which was founded in 2021 by the current Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, announced in a press release on Sept. 25 that it had filed a civil rights complaint against OPRF with the Department of Education. The complaint cites the employee demographics report presented to the OPRF school board at its Sept. 10 Committee of the Whole meeting as evidence that OPRF could be using race as a factor in hiring decisions. The complaint also cites an item in the OPRF strategic plan that states the school’s goal is to have 35% of the school’s teachers be teachers of color by August 2028. OPRF officials have been open about wanting, in the long term, to better align the demographics of its teachers and students. The complaint asks that the Office of Civil Rights investigate whether the goal of increasing teachers of color affects individual hiring decisions.
“A student’s race should never disqualify that student from a scholarship, and a teacher’s race should never count against a job application,” said Chad Mizelle, AFPI’s Chair of Litigation according to the press AFPI release. “Oak Park’s own records raise serious questions about equal treatment. The Department of Education should investigate and require the district to correct any unlawful discrimination it finds.”
OPRF has declined to comment on the matter.
The letter to the Department of Education was dated Sept. 22 and includes as exhibits the employee demographics report which was presented at the Sept. 10 meeting and a memo to the Board of Education about employee demographics that was prepared by Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources Roxana Sanders and Director of Employee Relations and Recruitment Janel Bishop and accompanied the employee demographics report. The complaint also includes a video of the Sept. 10 school board meeting which featured discussion of employee demographics, hiring practices and efforts to boost the hiring of Black teachers.
On June 11 AFPI Chief Legal Affairs Officer Leigh Ann O’Neill sent a letter to Greg Johnson, OPRF’s superintendent, and to the school board raising concerns about some OPRF practices and its focus on race in setting growth targets for Black and Hispanic students. The letter, which is included as Exhibit A in the complaint, also raised concerns about scholarships awarded by the Oak Park and River Forest Scholarship Foundation and by the African American Parents for Purposeful Leadership in Education (APPLE) and cited those two organization’s close ties to OPRF.
“In investigating the available scholarships awarded by both organizations, searches for eligibility for students of certain races, colors, national origins, ethnicities, genders, and who are of certain backgrounds (including “minority” students) return scholarship opportunities that expressly exclude non-preferred demographic markers,” the letter to Johnson states without offering any specific evidence.
OPRF spokeswoman Karin Sullivan said the school had no comment about the complaint.