One of the most often heard quotes from Dr Martin Luther King Jr is the following: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character”. Sadly, the dream has not yet come true for Blacks/African Americans when it comes to the access to PhD programs. In fact, even before U.S. Supreme Court in June 2023 outlawed Affirmative Action, racism against and exclusion of Blacks/African Americans was alive and well among U.S. universities’ PhD admissions staff thanks to support provided by investigators of the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) of U.S. Department of Education.
More precisely, the OCR has a congressionally-mandated duty to ensure that educational equity is upheld for people of all races and origins. The web site of OCR clearly says that “The mission of the Office for Civil Rights is to ensure equal access to education and to promote educational excellence throughout the nation through vigorous enforcement of civil rights”. However, instead of ensuring equal access to graduate/PhD education, OCR investigators directly and/or indirectly back graduate/PhD admission officers excluding qualified Blacks/African Americans from participating to graduate/PhD programs. In other words, OCR investigators are paid by American taxpayer dollars to combat discrimination; but instead of combating discrimination, they transform their offices into an office of support of racism against and exclusion of Blacks/African Americans. As a consequence, the very lucrative graduate/PhD programs in Mathematics, Statistics, Economics, Finance, Actuarial Science and related fields have become virtually inaccessible by qualified Blacks/African Americans. The statistics of National Science Foundation (“NSF”) speak for themselves: each year, only 1.5% of new PhD graduates in Mathematics and Statistics and only 2% of new PhD graduates in Economics and Finance from US universities are Blacks/African Americans despite the fact there are thousands of qualified Blacks/African Americans who want to do these PhD studies and can increase the Black representation ten times higher or more.
The PhD admission discrimination practice against Blacks/African Americans has also been corroborated by research findings of academic researchers. Let’s take the case of research findings of Professor Julia Posselt of University of Southern California. In publishing her research findings titled “Inside Graduate Admissions: Merit, Diversity, and Faculty Gatekeeping”, Harvard University Press said in 2016 the following: “How does graduate admissions work? Who does the system work for, and who falls through its cracks?... Drawing on firsthand observations of admission committees and interviews with faculty in 10 top-ranked doctoral programs... education professor Julie Posselt pulls back the curtain on a process usually conducted in secret... Who ultimately makes the admit list reveals as much about how Professors see themselves — and each other — as it does about how they view students. Professors in these programs say that they admit on merit, but they act on different meanings of the term”. In other words, the PhD admission discrimination practice against qualified Blacks/African Americans is not the mere occurrence of isolated or accidental or sporadic admission discrimination acts of a couple of PhD programs, but seemingly the admission practice of virtually all US universities thanks to the support provided by OCR investigators of US Department of Education.
So, on behalf of thousands of my Black/African American fellows that have been unlawfully deprived access to graduate/PhD programs, on behalf of my kids/nieces/nephews that have been and/or will be unfairly denied admission to graduate/PhD programs, and on behalf of myself that have been constantly excluded from participating to graduate/PhD programs during the last 20 years period, I, Randall Phillips, filed a criminal complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice in 2023 against OCR investigators of US Department of Education for:
(1) making false statements (18 U.S. Code §1001(a)) in government matter (43 CFR §20.510);
(2) conspiracy against civil rights of Blacks/African Americans (18 U.S. Code §241 ) and/or deprivation of civil rights under color of law (18 U.S. Code §242 );
(3) conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud United States (18 U.S. Code § 371 );
(4) and retaliation against me for my federally protected activities (18 U.S. Code § 245 ).
In March 2025, the Honorable Linda E. McMahon (Secretary of Education Department of the new US administration) decided to close the 7 OCR offices that I directly and/or indirectly named in my complaint (Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Chicago, Dallas and San Francisco). This is a strong indication that we are right about our affirmation that these OCR offices have been actively involved in the racism against and exclusion of Blacks/African Americans from participating to graduate/PhD programs. The firing of the OCR investigators is a win for the Blacks/African Americans and for our nation as whole. Federal employees paid by American taxpayer dollars to combat discrimination should be held accountable. So, on behalf of my fellow Blacks/African Americans that have been unlawfully excluded from participating to graduate/PhD programs and on behalf of myself, we express our gratitude to the Honorable Linda E. McMahon for her bold action. We look forward to hear the continuation of the action to restore the fair, merit-based process for access to graduate/PhD programs in USA.