On December 2, 2025, FAIR filed a federal civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights against North Thurston Public Schools (NTPS) in Lacey, Washington. The complaint alleges violations of Title VI and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for sponsoring racially segregated staff events, despite being informed by FAIR of the legal violations one year earlier
In November 2024, FAIR sent a detailed letter to NTPS Superintendent Troy Oliver explaining that the district’s planned “Educators of Color” event violated federal civil rights law. Our letter cited Supreme Court precedent including Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and explicitly urged the district to ensure all employees could attend regardless of race.
NTPS ignored FAIR’s guidance. On November 12, 2025, the district’s Equity and Languages Department sent an email inviting only “staff of color” to a December gathering. This time, the district attempted to conceal the discriminatory nature by avoiding public flyers and relying on a restricted email list and word-of-mouth among selected employees.
Multiple non-“staff of color” employees reported to FAIR that they believed they were excluded from the event. The message was unmistakable: North Thurston Public Schools was willing to openly defy federal civil rights law to maintain racially segregated programming.
As FAIR explained to NTPS last year, federal law prohibits public schools from separating employees or excluding them from benefits based on race. The Supreme Court has consistently held that all racial classifications – even those characterized as “benign” or “separate but equal” – must survive strict scrutiny, a standard that is rarely met.
In Students for Fair Admissions, the Court emphasized that “eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it” and that equal protection “cannot mean one thing when applied to one individual and something else when applied to a person of another color.” This principle applies with full force to employer-sponsored events that exclude staff based on skin color.
NTPS’s conduct represents more than a policy violation. By proceeding with racially exclusive events after receiving legal guidance, the district normalized discrimination and undermined equal treatment principles that civil rights laws protect. The district’s decision to obscure the 2025 event through private invitations suggests awareness of wrongdoing, which made the violation even more egregious.
