Across multiple fronts, the RI Department of Education (RIDE) continues to fail Ocean State students and families. In the latest instance that highlights RIDE’s woke incompetence, the United States government has just filed legal action to stop RIDE and the Providence Public School District (PPSD) from discriminating against teachers based on their race in violation of federal law.

Under the deficient leadership of its commissioner, Angelica Infante-Green, the Rhode Island Department of Education deserves an “F” for failing to implement successful educational reforms while student achievement continues to plummet across the state. In its zeal to implement socialist and other “social justice” programs, RIDE has suffered many failures, including:

• Failing student test scores, which continue to raise alarms
• Infringements on parental rights, including the Jane Doe case soon to be heard in the RI Supreme Court, where Daughter Doe attempted suicide after being secretly transitioned by school officials, as allowed for by RIDE regulations.
• A radicalized and politicized curricula, including social studies standards that promote anti-American, anti-God, and other divisive woke tenets
• Chronic student and teach absenteeism
• RIDE’s Top-10 Failures and Controversies can be viewed here

The official complaint, filed earlier today by the United States of America in the US District Court of Rhode Island, targets PPSD’s “Educators of Color Loan Forgiveness Program” (Program), whereby new teachers can receive student-loan repayments up to $25,000. The catch: white teachers are not eligible.

By its own terms, the purpose of the Program is to aid PPSD’s efforts to recruit a more “diverse” faculty. But in doing so, RIDE and PPSD engage in  blatant race discrimination, which federal law has long prohibited. This obvious civil rights violation was funded by the RI Foundation (RIF), which in recent years is now run by former US Congressman, David Cicilline, a known woke activist.

The Program is a joint effort between PPSD, RIDE, and the Rhode Island Foundation (RIF). In 2019, RIDE took over management of PPSD, including the administration of PPSD’s faculty incentive programs. In 2021, RIDE and PPSD partnered with RIF, a publicly supported non-profit, to fund the Program to recruit more non-white teachers to the district. The Program opened applications to all newly hired non-white PPSD teachers with at least $5,000 in student debt.

This is race discrimination in public employment, pure and simple. The entire complaint can be viewed here.