A Father Fights Race-Based Funding in Portland

Raseley v. Portland Public Schools

Richard Raseley couldn’t stay silent when he learned that the Portland, Oregon, school system was denying equal educational opportunities to children like his eight-year-old daughter based on the color of their skin. The district allocates additional funds for school support staff based, in part, on a school’s percentage of “historically underserved” students—which explicitly includes four racial groups: African American, Hispanic, Native American, and Pacific Islander.

The so-called “equity allocation” formula may be popular in Portland, but Richard also knows that it is blatantly unconstitutional. So, with CIR’s help, Richard filed suit last fall to end it. That suit also challenges a second Portland policy that compounds the “equity allocation” injustice by curtailing parent fundraising for their own kids’ schools.

Parents used to be allowed (even encouraged) to raise funds through local school foundations to help the principal at their own kids’ schools hire needed support staff, such as librarians and teachers’ aides. When Richard chaired his daughter’s school foundation, he helped raise nearly $100,000 for such positions. But in 2024, the school board passed a new policy prohibiting parent foundations from directing funds to their own kids’ schools. Now, district officials pool parent contributions in an “equity fund” and redistribute them according to the district’s “equity and social justice values.”

The result was predictable: parent fundraising fell by more than 80%, from $3.4 million in the previous year to just over $593,000 under the new policy. Apparently, district officials are more focused on advancing a radical “social justice” agenda than meeting the educational needs of students.

Richard now spends part of his weekly volunteer time washing lunch trays in the cafeteria because the district’s unlawful policies deny his daughter’s school the additional funds for needed positions. Other parent volunteers fill similar gaps, monitoring recess or serving as crossing guards.

To help fight back, Richard recently founded Families for Fair School Funding (FFSF), a nonpartisan coalition of Portland residents advocating for funding fairness and raising concerns about the district’s illegal discrimination. In April, FFSF joined Richard as a plaintiff in his lawsuit.

Portland’s equity funding scheme is a textbook case of unequal treatment. The district provides additional staff for some students that it denies to others based on race. That’s illegal discrimination. It makes no difference that race is one of several factors in the funding formula.

Richard is fighting for race-neutral policies that treat all students fairly, and to restore parents’ ability to support their own kids’ schools without racial gatekeeping. It is no easy task to take on a major city’s powerful school district—yet he and other brave parents are teaching their children an invaluable lesson about what true equality means.

Richard knows he and FFSF are in for a tough battle. But he is determined to right this wrong. And so is CIR. Indeed, this case offers an ideal opportunity to further entrench the principle that government has no business doling out benefits or burdens based on skin color.