ANN ARBOR, MI – On July 23, 2025, the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (DoE OCR) announced that it has opened “national origin discrimination investigations” into five universities, including the University of Michigan. The DoE OCR alleges that scholarships, including U-M’s Dreamer Scholarship, may violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This is a blatant attack on DACA recipients and undocumented students.
Any claims of violating Title VI are false and rely on the bad-faith assumption that these scholarships are the only scholarships available and are thus being taken away from other students in need of financial assistance. However, other sources of financial aid are available to qualifying students, such as U-M’s Go Blue Guarantee. 70% of Michigan resident undergraduates and 40% of nonresident undergraduates on the U-M Ann Arbor campus receive financial aid.
Furthermore, a university spokesperson, in response to a Michigan Daily inquiry, wrote that the university has no comment on the investigation. This is shameful. The US administration has repeatedly demonstrated—through unlawful abductions, detainments, and deportations—its intent to target undocumented persons. The DoE’s investigation into U-M is another iteration of this targeting, by attempting to limit resources and to access sensitive student information.
About the DoE OCR investigation, a grad worker wrote: “This investigation is absurd. Financial aid opportunities for Undocumented students are already scarce, making this scholarship essential to the education of many here. The response by the university is disappointing. We ask for U-M to protect student information and continue the scholarship.”
GEO unequivocally condemns the DoE OCR’s investigation and calls on the University of Michigan—Interim President Domenico Grasso, Provost Laurie K. McCauley, Regent Jordan Acker, Regent Michael Behm, Regent Mark Bernstein, Regent Paul Brown, Regent Sarah Hubbard, Regent Denise Ilitch, Regent Carl Meyers, and Regent Katherine White—to publicly commit to fighting this investigation and to protect U-M students and workers. Silence is complicity.
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