On Wednesday, the Department of Education announced it is investigating five universities over their scholarship programs for receipts of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a program that allows people illegally brought into the U.S. as children to remain without fear of deportation. According to the Education Department, scholarships for Dreamers violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 because they discriminate on the basis of national origin. 

The logic here is that if scholarships are reserved for individuals not born in the U.S., it discriminates against people who are born in the U.S.. It’s a new front in the Education Department’s war on higher education, one that also manages to attack immigrants in the process. 

The universities in the administration’s crosshairs are the University of Louisville, the University of Nebraska Omaha, the University of Miami, the University of Michigan, and Western Michigan University. That’s thanks to the Legal Insurrection Foundation’s Equal Protection Project, which teed up this round of harassment by complaining to the Education Department. Legal Insurrection has a very narrow view of “equal protection,” one that protects primarily white people, despite pretending the group is a warrior against discrimination. Warriors for discrimination, maybe. 

Unfortunately, the Department of Justice has already successfully pursued this theory. In a sham lawsuit clearly done in concert with Texas, the DOJ sued that state over its law allowing undocumented students to get in-state tuition rates. The idea was that giving any benefit to undocumented students discriminates against good old American-born students. The case’s swift settlement led to Texas declaring its own law unconstitutional and wiping it off the books. 

The investigations announced on Wednesday are predicated on the same nativist nonsense. 

The Department of Education has plenty of time to harass schools because it has stopped doing any other work. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court gave President Donald Trump the go-ahead to fire nearly 1,400 employees. The civil rights branch has been decimated by firings, and investigations into civil rights complaints have slowed to a pathetic crawl. 

In June, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon bragged to Congress about how great they were doing, with the standard Trumpy language that is now required of all Cabinet secretaries: “Not only are we reducing the backlog, but we are keeping up with the current amount with a reduced staff because we are doing it efficiently.”

This is flatly false. An investigation by the Associated Press found that the department has resolved only 65 complaints thus far, which is significantly behind the pace of prior years. The database shows that eight of those 65 were resolved before Trump took office on Jan. 20, as well. Plus, complaints have increased by 9%, and the department is currently facing a backlog of 25,000 complaints. The administration has also abolished multiple civil rights offices.

Instead of protecting the rights of students, the department is devoting itself to attacking schools. The department has threatened universities with loss of accreditation based on their ostensible concerns over the treatment of Jewish students. McMahon has launched over 50 “investigations” into universities to eradicate every last shred of diversity, inclusion, and equity. 

Of course, the Department of Education can’t destroy education alone. It takes a village. 

In May, the Department of Homeland Security got in on the action, attempting to block Harvard University from admitting international students. That move would also have required current international students to transfer or lose their legal immigration status. A federal judge quickly ruled against the administration, but that won’t stop them from continuing to target Harvard and international students. 

On Wednesday, the State Department announced it would be investigating Harvard’s compliance with the J-1 visa program, which lets international students do exchange programs here. It’s just another way to try to block Harvard from enrolling international students. 

The Department of Energy, oddly, is leading the charge to ban transgender girls from playing sports. Why? Who knows! 

While the departments of Homeland Security, State, Energy, and Education are indeed helpful for attacking schools, nothing beats the fervor of the DOJ. The DOJ keeps “investigating” schools for allegedly discriminating against white students. They’re attacking the entire University of California system, alleging race- and sex-based discrimination in a vague notice that doesn’t explain what, exactly, they are investigating. They’re going after the University of Chicago over international students. And so on. 

It isn’t yet clear what will happen to the five universities targeted on Wednesday. However, it’s exceedingly clear that the Trump administration will never stop attacking schools or immigrants. Here, it’s so convenient for the administration that it gets to do both at the same time. There’s some government efficiency for you.