Defending Ed Files Civil Rights Complaint Against Stanford University for National Board Resource Center BIPOC Cohort

For the past several years, Stanford’s National Board Resource Center (NBRC) has partnered with the California Teachers Association and the UCLA National Board Project to launch “fully-funded cohort[s] of Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) teachers … who are committed to earning National Board Certification and serving as teacher-leaders in their communities.”

The program’s eligibility requirements state explicitly that an applicant must “identify as a person of color” to be eligible for the program. It adds that “The cohort will be selected to seek a diverse balance of the following elements: racial and ethnic diversity, geographic representation, and subject matter/grade level.” According to the California Teachers Association, the BIPOC cohort program is still active throughout the 2025-2026 school year.

Because Stanford has adopted and implemented a racially discriminatory program maintained with federal funding, it has violated the “color-blind” mandate of Title VI of the Civil Right Act of 1964. For this reason, Defending Education has filed a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education and requested that the Department investigate this apparent violation of federal law.