‘If a job qualification … is chosen because it will tend to result in more people of a particular race being hired, it’s a violation,’ says U.S. Commission on Civil Rights member Gail Heriot
A Washington, D.C., city government initiative exclusively hires graduates from Historically Black Colleges and Universities, a requirement that likely violates federal race discrimination laws, legal experts told the Washington Free Beacon.
The D.C. Department of Employment Services (DOES) posted 13 job listings in June that require applicants to be graduates “from an HBCU with a bachelor’s degree in either December 2024 or May 2025.” The positions, which have not been previously reported, are part of D.C.’s Pathways to Public Service program and range from park ranger to a Department of Forensic Sciences management analyst.
Legal experts told the Free Beacon that the HBCU requirement is an attempt from the D.C. government to avoid race discrimination laws and could open it up to lawsuits.
Laws forbidding race discrimination “don’t just apply to explicit race discrimination,” said Gail Heriot, a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. “If a job qualification—like graduation from an HBCU—is chosen because it will tend to result in more people of a particular race being hired, it’s a violation.”
Indeed, a DOES report published ahead of Pathways to Public Service’s launch said the initiative was aimed at “advancing workforce equity and diversification in alignment with the District’s broader commitment to inclusive economic growth.” In 2023, D.C.’s government workforce was 68 percent black, according to U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission data. Two-thirds of HBCUs carry a student population that is more than 80 percent black, according to a Pew Research Center report published in October.
“In this case, it’s hard to imagine why anyone would insist that applicants be graduates of HBCUs if the purpose weren’t to hire more African Americans,” Heriot said.
Jason Torchinsky, a partner at Holtzman Vogel and a former official in the Justice Department’s civil rights division, said the HBCU hiring qualification would “violate the Supreme Court’s SFFA ruling and open the District up to a lawsuit for race discrimination.” Pacific Legal Foundation attorney Andrew Quinio said that the program “seems unlawful if the requirement that applicants be graduates of an HBCU serves as a proxy for the applicant’s race.”
When Pathways to Public Service first launched in 2024 under the name HBCU Public Service Program, it had a budget of $150,000 and was only open to Howard University and University of the District of Columbia graduates. But the budget tripled to $450,000 thanks to a grant from the Biden Department of Labor, allowing the program to open up to alumni from all HBCUs.
A Trump administration Department of Labor spokeswoman told the Free Beacon that the grant was meant to fund apprenticeship projects and was not “intended for use to support the Pathways to Public Service Program.”
“There have been no determinations to issue further funding to DOES at this time,” she added, though she did not say whether the grant money was being spent illegally or whether the Trump administration would try to claw back that money.
The job listings come as D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser appears to take steps to appease President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans. Her administration painted over “Black Lives Matter Plaza” in March and, in the spring, pushed to repeal D.C.’s “sanctuary city” law.
Neither DOES nor the Pathways to Public Service Program responded to a request for comment.
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