Education advocates filed a civil rights complaint against Southern Illinois University Carbondale on Wednesday for violating federal discrimination laws.

Defending Education identified at least 33 federally funded scholarships, funds, and programs issued to SIUC students on the basis of race and sex — which puts the rural university in violation of Title VI, Title IX, and the Equal Protection Clause, the complaint alleges.

“SIUC is openly weaponizing taxpayer dollars to discriminate. No student should be told they’re the wrong color or gender to qualify for opportunity — especially at a public university funded by taxpayers,” Defending Education President Nicki Neily told National Review. “This kind of blatant discrimination has no place in higher education, and it’s time for the Department of Education to stop it.”

President Donald Trump has threatened to strip federal funding from any school that does not scale back diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, including race-based admissions and scholarship practices. While the administration has focused on well-known universities such as Columbia University, Cornell University, and Northwestern University, any school that engages in DEI practices and receives federal funding is eligible for review.

In a “Dear Colleague” letter the Department of Education published in February, officials emphasized that “Federal law . . . prohibits covered entities from using race in decisions pertaining to admissions, hiring, promotion . . . scholarships . . . and all other aspects of student, academic, and campus life. Put simply, educational institutions may neither separate or segregate students based on race, nor distribute benefits or burdens based on race.”

SIUC’s anti-racism and DEI office offers race- and sex-based scholarships, including the “Diversifying Higher Education Faculty in Illinois” scholarship, which specifies that a recipient must be “a member of an Underrepresented Group”; the “Black Undergrad Education Scholarship” for “African American students”; the “SIUC minority scholarship fund”; and more.

The university’s Enrollment Management Department, College of Education, College of Health and Human Sciences, Graduate School, Paul Simon Public Policy Institute, and Student Affairs Department all issue race- or sex- based scholarships that give priority to minorities, women, or socially and culturally underrepresented groups as well.

SIUC did not respond to a request for comment.

University officials did, however, address the potential for DEI funding cuts earlier this year. Phil Gilbert, the chair of the school’s board of trustees and a federal judge appointed by George H.W. Bush, said that “As a university, we need to stay the course. I can’t think of an institution more important to diversity, equity and inclusion than an educational institution, because education is the bridge to tomorrow for everyone,” ProPublica reported.

With the OCR complaint, Defending Education (formerly Parents Defending Education) also announced its expansion into higher education. Created four years ago to expose wrongdoing in public school districts across the nation, Defending Education will now include colleges and universities as focus areas.

“SIUC is one prime example of how American colleges and universities are in desperate need of reform, which is precisely why Defending Education (DE) is expanding its efforts into higher education: to hold American colleges and universities accountable, especially those like SIUC, who are enacting discriminatory initiatives under the guise of ‘equity,'” Neily said. “From this day forward, DE is here to make DEI go extinct in institutions of higher ed.”