Many universities cut ties with The PhD Project after the Trump administration’s investigation and civil-rights enforcement against the nonprofit, the Education Department said Thursday. The Office for Civil Rights said the investigation opened in March 2025 and has led 31 universities to agree to end partnerships with the group, while negotiations continue with 14 additional schools.
The department’s Office for Civil Rights said it found The PhD Project 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. In a statement, the department said The PhD Project “unlawfully limits eligibility based on the race of participants,” and it said institutions that partnered with it violated Title VI.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon described the agreements as part of a broader campaign to end diversity programs in higher education that the administration says can exclude white and Asian American students. McMahon said, “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.”
The PhD Project, which the Trump administration said became a focus of scrutiny after conservative strategists drew attention to it, said it aims to expand opportunities for doctoral students by improving representation. The organization said in a statement Thursday that it was founded with “the goal of providing more role models in the front of business classrooms and this remains our goal today,” and its website says it has “helped more than 1,500 members earn their doctoral degree.”
The department said the 31 universities included major public research schools such as Arizona State, Ohio State and the University of Michigan, along with private institutions including Yale, Duke and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. According to the department, many of the schools moved quickly after the investigation opened, in some cases to avoid additional entanglement with the administration as the inquiry advanced.
MIT said it had paid The PhD Project “a nominal fee” to participate in the nonprofit’s university fairs or conferences, which allowed MIT to send representatives to answer questions about attending the school. A spokesperson for MIT, Kimberly Allen, said MIT informed the government in April 2025 that it had ended participation in such conferences and was notified months later that the Office for Civil Rights had found MIT in violation of Title VI. Allen said the university signed a “resolution agreement” about a week ago to resolve the matter, “but explicitly did not admit any liability, wrongdoing or violation of any law or regulation.”
Other universities described similar steps. The University of North Dakota said it ended its membership with the PhD Project about two weeks after the investigation was announced, with spokesperson David Dodds saying the university joined to gain access to the group’s member directory and applicant database to recruit a larger pool of qualified applicants for faculty positions. The University of Utah said it had a table at annual conferences hosted by the nonprofit in the 2024-25 school year and in two prior years, and it cut ties in October after settling with the department, according to spokesperson Rebecca Walsh.
Walsh said the University of Utah’s business school enrolled 170 PhD students over the past 14 years, and she said two were involved through the PhD Project. The Education Department also said all 31 universities agreed to review partnerships with other organizations to identify any that violate Title VI by restricting participation based on race, tying the enforcement effort to a wider set of nonprofit relationships on campus.