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When the Department of Justice (DOJ) sued the state of Rhode Island in September over a program aimed at increasing teacher diversity, the Trump administration claimed the initiative discriminated against white people.

In its complaint filed in federal court in Providence, the DOJ argued that a loan forgiveness program designed for teachers of color was “race discrimination in public employment, pure and simple.”

“Helping new teachers pay off their student loans may be a worthy endeavor for public school districts,” the complaint reads. “But excluding white teachers is racist and unlawful.”

But teachers with deep roots in Providence and education policy experts who spoke with Prism say the program is a critical step in solving a longstanding lack of diversity within the local teacher corps and serving the city’s diverse student population.

“People make so many judgments, and they think they know what’s best for students in school,  but they’re not in the classroom with those kids,” said Sierra Stewart, a third grade special education teacher in Providence who benefited from the program, which forgives up to $25,000 in student loan debt over the course of three years for eligible participants. 

The program was created in 2021 through a partnership of the state, the school district, and the nonprofit, the Rhode Island Foundation, which raised the funds for the program. 

Full-time teachers who identify as Black, Asian, Indigenous, Latinx, or multiracial were eligible for the loan repayment program. The goal, as reported by local media at the time of its inception, was to help hire at least 125 new teachers of color for the district.

Stewart, who grew up in North Providence, said her belief in the program was shaped by her experience being bullied as a biracial child in a primarily white area. 

“I loved my school system [and] I loved my teachers, but something I struggled with was never seeing someone who looked like me,” she said. “Everybody had straight hair, and I was obsessed with having straight hair. People made fun of me for my curly hair.”

“I want to make those children feel more comfortable because I didn’t have that,” she said, referring to her students of color. 

Now, as a teacher in the Providence Public School District (PPSD), Stewart has the opportunity to do exactly that. The district’s student population is majority students of color: 69% Latinx, 14% Black, 4% Asian, 5.5% multiracial, and 1% Native American, according to the school district’s website. (White students make up 6.5% of the student population.) 

Prism reached out to the PPSD, the Rhode Island Foundation, and the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) for either an interview or a statement about the lawsuit. PPSD and the Rhode Island Foundation did not respond. A communications representative from RIDE referred Prism to the state’s previous statement provided earlier to other outlets: 

“Over the last few months, PPSD and RIDE worked in good faith with the U.S. Department of Justice to reach a resolution on this matter. PPSD and RIDE officials have not been served, and we were not informed by federal representatives that they would proceed with a lawsuit. Since there is active litigation, PPSD and RIDE will not be commenting further.”

The DOJ did not respond to a request by Prism for comment. However, in a September statement announcing the lawsuit, the DOJ maintained that a program designed for teachers of color that “excludes only white teachers” amounted to “a pattern or practice of discrimination of PPSD teachers who do not identify as ‘teachers of color’ in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended.”

The Providence initiative was created in response to a persistent diversity gap: Teachers of color represent roughly 20% of teachers in the district. In comparison, the student population is 80% children of color, as reported by local outlets. 

Education policy experts say the Trump administration’s attacks on the Providence loan forgiveness program miss the mark.

“The administration attacking these [diversity initiatives] under the guise of discrimination is disappointing and, in our eyes, a misapplication and a misunderstanding of the law,” said Eric Duncan, director for P-12 policy for EdTrust, a national research and advocacy organization focused on education equity.

Duncan said that this misuse of the law goes back to the 2023 Supreme Court decision that effectively ended race-conscious admission programs at colleges and universities.

“That [decision] has been applied to say that any efforts to look at race or ethnicity or folks’ background in that way is illegal—and the courts have not said that,” Duncan said. “They have not said that the law applies across the board to any efforts to achieve diversity or to do things outside of college admissions.”

For Stewart, the loan forgiveness played a crucial role in making her lifelong dream of being a teacher more financially sustainable. Even with the scholarship that helped her pay for her undergraduate program at Rhode Island College, she graduated with about $25,000 in debt. She secured a teaching job soon after graduating, but made less than $45,000 her first year. 

“My salary was not livable,” she said, adding that she stretched her income as far as possible by living first with her parents and then with her boyfriend.

The loan forgiveness program, which typically wipes $25,000 over the course of three years, would have been enough to get her completely out of debt. However, Stewart said, the payments stopped over the summer, followed by an email in September indicating that they were on pause. She has about $7,000 left to pay.

It’s unclear whether the program is still running while the lawsuit proceeds. A spokesperson for the state’s Department of Education declined to comment on the program’s current status. A page about the Providence loan forgiveness program linked on the school district’s human resources page leads to a 404 page.

The salary for a first-year teacher in the PPSD is just over $48,000 as of Nov. 1, according to the current teacher’s union contract.

The cost of living in Providence is high. The real estate corporation Redfin rated the city the least affordable metro area in the nation earlier this year, due to years of growing rental prices that have far outpaced local wage growth. A city council member in 2023 made news for describing how he struggled to stay in the same city he represented, amid what he called a “cutthroat” housing market.

Prism also spoke to teachers of color who did not benefit from the loan forgiveness program, but still supported its goals based on a commitment to increasing educator diversity.

“I think that teachers of color understand the child as a whole better because they understand their culture,” said a Latinx elementary school teacher in the PPSD when asked by Prism for her thoughts on the importance of having teachers of color in the classroom. The teacher spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to speak freely.

She said that having a shared cultural connection facilitated open communication with parents, as well.

“They trust us to tell us things,” she said. “It could even be like, ‘Oh, the kid doesn’t have the glasses because I don’t have money, and I don’t know how to get a pair of glasses for them.’”

“We also have parents that work a lot, and they cannot be there to help the kid, let’s say, with homework,” she added. “They trust us to tell us a little bit more about their family dynamics.”

Karla Vigil, co-founder and CEO of the Rhode Island-based nonprofit the Equity Institute, said that the lack of diversity among teachers is caused in part by barriers that prevent paraprofessionals—otherwise known as teacher’s assistants—from becoming fully licensed teachers. 

She said that the majority of the paraprofessionals she’s come across in her years of education advocacy work in Rhode Island have been people of color.

“They were in the classroom every day—they just didn’t have the certification,” she said. “When we asked why, things came up like financial ability to pay for getting their degrees, managing a family, [and] having the time.”

“They’re only making $30,000 a year,” Vigil added. “They would tell us, like, ‘We’re driving a bus after school,’ ‘We’re doing Uber Eats after school.’”

Because of this need, the Equity Institute supports paraprofessionals who are looking to become certified classroom teachers. The organization helps participants obtain their bachelor’s degree and provides exam preparation, personalized advising services, and financial stipends. As far as Vigil is aware, none of the participants in her program has benefited from the PPSD loan forgiveness program at the heart of the lawsuit.

Vigil’s advocacy for educator diversity is informed by her previous experience as a classroom teacher at a Rhode Island charter school outside of the PPSD.

Teachers should not be paying to become teachers. We should make this more affordable and accessible.

Karla Vigil, co-founder and CEO of the Equity Institute

“My profile was different from most of the teachers there,” she said. She was a mother of two in her 30s, with a master’s degree in teaching. The other teachers were young, did not have children, and were oftentimes participants in the Teach for America program, she said.

“That maturity and life experience gave me a different approach to being in the classroom,” Vigil said.

Although Vigil did not benefit from the PPSD loan forgiveness program, there was another kind of loan forgiveness program that she said “changed my life”: Public Service Loan Forgiveness.

“I came here when I was 3,” said Vigil, who was born in El Salvador. “My parents came here and worked their asses off, like many people in America. It’s not a unique story.”

She continued her parents’ dedication to hard work, earning her bachelor’s degree from the University of Rhode Island while balancing the demands of motherhood after having her first child at 19. After a mentor suggested that she consider becoming a teacher, she dove headfirst into a residency program, earning her master’s degree from Roger Williams University. In the ensuing years, she also had her second child. 

“I got out [of the residency program], and I was making $50,000 a year with two kids,” she said. Meanwhile, she had accumulated about $120,000 in loan debt.

“This was what I had to do to be seen, to be respected, to start a career,” she said, describing the calculations she made in borrowing money to pursue the two degrees. 

“You’re providing education for children,” she added. “We don’t respect this profession enough. Teachers should not be paying to become teachers. We should make this more affordable and accessible.”

She added a reflection on how the DOJ has centered white teachers in its lawsuit.

“We by no means never say all white people have it great,” she said, noting the challenges facing some rural and low-income white Americans. “We advocate for people who need it. We know in the system we currently work in; race is a big component of that.” 

“[The support] should really be for everyone, but there’s so many gaps in this country—and we know who’s at the bottom of these gaps,” she added. “It’s Black people, it’s Latinos, it’s immigrants, it’s the disabled. We know who gets the shitty end of the stick when it comes to the policies people want to pass.”

Editorial Team:
Carolyn Copeland, Lead Editor
Lara Witt, Top Editor
Rashmee Kumar, Copy Editor