Stopping Race-Based Funding and Restoring Fairness in Portland Public Schools

Raseley v. Portland Public Schools

Richard Raseley is challenging Portland Public Schools’ unconstitutional use of race to allocate staff and resources and fighting to restore parents’ ability to support their own children’s schools. 

Since 2013, Portland Public Schools has used an “equity allocation” formula that distributes additional staff based partly on the racial composition of the school. Schools receive extra staffing if at least 40% of their students are “historically underserved”—a category that not only includes students with special education needs or limited English proficiency, but also members of four racial groups: African American, Hispanic, Native American, and Pacific Islanders. 

Under this formula, two schools with identical academic needs, test scores, and poverty rates, can receive different levels of funding and staffing—based solely on the racial composition of their student bodies. 

In May 2024, Portland compounded the illegal equity funding allocations by dismantling its long-standing system of local school fundraising foundations. For years, these foundations allowed parents to raise money directly for their children’s schools—funding classroom aides, librarians, and other supplemental staff that made a real difference in students’ educational experience. 

The district replaced this community model with a centralized “equity fund” that pools all donations and redistributes them according to the school board’s “racial equity social justice” values. The results have been devastating. In the final year local school foundations operated independently (2023-2024), they collectively raised $3.4 million. The year after the fundraising policy changed, total fundraising plummeted to just $593, 324—a drop of more than 80%.  

What Portland calls “equity” has instead produced widespread losses across the district: fewer teachers and staff, diminished resources, and a collapse in community engagement. 

Before the new policy, Richard served as chair of his youngest daughter’s local school foundation for two years, helping to raise between $100,000 and $150,000 during that period for classroom aides, librarians, and other staff. Portland’s new policy prohibits Richard and other parents from fundraising for their own children’s schools.

Richard is organizing Families for Fair School Funding, a nonpartisan coalition of Portland residents committed to ensuring that Portland Public Schools allocate resources fairly, transparently, and according to educational needs. 

While managing his full-time job, Richard continues to volunteer at his daughter’s school. Now his support takes the form of washing lunch trays every Wednesday because of insufficient cafeteria staff. He’s not alone. Other parents juggle work and family obligations to volunteer monitoring recess and assisting crossing guards during the school commute to make up for the lack of critical funding that Portland now prohibits parents from helping to supply.

Background: The Fourteenth Amendment and Equal Treatment 

The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees equal protection of the laws. Government entities, including public schools, cannot allocate benefits or burdens based on race. The Supreme Court has consistently held that any racial classification by the government is “inherently suspect” and triggers strict scrutiny—the highest level of constitutional review. 

Portland’s “equity allocation” uses student race as one factor in determining which schools receive extra staff. The Supreme Court has repeatedly rejected these kinds of race-based distinctions. As the Court held in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (2023), “eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.” 

Public schools, like universities, cannot justify racial preferences with appeals to “equity” or “social justice.” Portland’s use of race to allocate public resources directly conflicts with this principle and violates the Fourteenth Amendment. 

Why This Case Matters 

This case is about more than reversing one policy in one school district. It’s about protecting every public student’s right to an equal education and stopping a growing trend of public institutions using race as a shortcut for fairness. 

By using race to determine which schools receive extra funding, Portland has created a system that divides students and communities. Parents and educators have seen the consequences: lost resources, reduced local participation, and declining trust in public schools. 

This case aims to set a critical precedent against race-based funding formulas and reaffirm that every student—regardless of background—deserves an equal chance to learn, thrive, and succeed.