U-M ends ties with PhD Project after U.S. civil rights office action

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The University of Michigan said it has ended its partnership with the nonprofit PhD Project after reaching an agreement with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, federal officials announced. The civil-rights office said the PhD Project “unlawfully limits eligibility based on race” and described universities’ participation as violations of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

In the agreement announced last week, the Office for Civil Rights said U-M and 30 other colleges and universities ended their longstanding partnerships with the PhD Project. The federal office said it found that the schools violated Title VI by partnering with an organization that discriminates on the basis of race.

Office for Civil Rights officials also pointed to the timing of their action as part of a wider enforcement push. The federal government’s announcement came almost a year after the Education Department said it had begun an investigation into “racial preferences” in academic opportunities or scholarships.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon said the agreements show what she called a “Trump effect in action.” McMahon said institutions were agreeing to “cut ties with discriminatory organizations,” recommitting to federal law, and “restoring equality of opportunity on campuses across the nation,” adding that other institutions should follow suit.

U-M spokesperson Kay Jarvis provided a limited response to questions about the partnership’s impact. Jarvis said, via email, that the Ross School of Business “has not been a member of the PhD Project since March 2025.”

Former Minority Summer Institute students and faculty involved with U-M’s history of preparing minority candidates for doctoral study criticized and defended the change, reflecting deep division over how race-conscious programs should operate. David B. Wooten, a U-M professor who said he was a student leader in U-M’s Minority Summer Institute while earning his PhD and a member of the PhD Project’s Hall of Fame, said the decision “does hurt to see us take a knee on this.”

Wooten’s comments came alongside other reactions from U-M faculty. Silke-Maria Weineck, U-M’s Grace Lee Boggs Collegiate Professor of Comparative Literature and German Studies, said, “Any time the University of Michigan collaborates with the Trump administration is a day of shame,” adding that she viewed the policies as designed “to roll back what little progress we have made in creating a more equitable institution.”

Mark Perry, a former U-M Flint faculty member, took the opposite stance and criticized the PhD Project. Perry said the organization has a “30+ year history of blatant and ongoing racial discrimination,” and he argued that it was “unfortunate and embarrassing” that U-M had been affiliated with it and listed as a “Supporting University” on its websites for more than a quarter century.

The PhD Project says its work is intended to broaden access to the faculty pipeline rather than restrict it. In a statement emailed to reporters, the nonprofit said it was founded “with the goal of providing more role models in the front of business classrooms and this remains our goal today,” and it said its current vision is to create “a broader talent pipeline of current and future business leaders” through “networking, mentorship, and unique events.”

Federal officials described the PhD Project as part of a long-running strategy aimed at increasing representation among business doctoral students. The organization began in 1994 after foundation and business leaders noticed a lack of diversity among corporate business faculty, according to the PhD Project’s description of its mission.

U-M said its own role in the underlying approach dates to earlier programs. Federal reporting described the University of Michigan as a pioneer through its Minority Summer Institute, a six-week program offered from 1990 to 1993 for prospective minority PhD students to take classes, attend seminars, meet faculty, and explore the path to an academic career.

The dispute also unfolded amid other reported changes at universities tied to the broader debate over diversity, equity and inclusion enforcement. The AP report said U-M ended an eight-year, multimillion-dollar DEI project last year and stopped providing gender-affirming care for minors at Michigan Medicine under pressure from President Donald Trump, who has called it “gender ideology extremism.”

At the heart of the current decision is how federal civil-rights law is applied to programs that aim to increase participation by historically underrepresented groups. In the federal announcement, the Office for Civil Rights said the PhD Project unlawfully restricted eligibility by race, while U-M and other schools’ agreements ended participation with the program.