Dive Brief
- Pre-K-12 schools have two weeks to comply with a new U.S. Department of Education requirement to eliminate race-based practices for admissions, hiring and other programming, according to a Feb. 14 Dear Colleague letter sent by the department's Office for Civil Rights.
- Schools that don't comply are at risk of losing federal funding, said the letter from Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights. Trainor's four-page letter said that in recent years, schools have "discriminated against students on the basis of race, including white and Asian students, many of whom come from disadvantaged backgrounds and low-income families.”
- "These institutions' embrace of pervasive and repugnant race-based preferences and other forms of racial discrimination have emanated throughout every facet of academia," said the letter, citing legal requirements under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Protection Clause.
Dive Insight
The letter comes on the heels of Trump administration actions — in the first weeks of the new administration — to eliminate all diversity, equity and inclusion practices in schools and at the Education Department.
While education policy experts say the letter is intended mostly for colleges, there are implications for preschools and elementary and secondary schools, as well. However, exactly how pre-K-12th grade schools should comply is causing confusion, said Julia Martin, director of policy and government affairs for The Bruman Group, a legal and consulting group based in Washington, D.C.
For example, many are wondering if the directive more broadly means that schools can't have race-aligned student affinity groups or celebrations of different races and ethnicities. Or is the directive limited to race-based practices in school admissions, such as for school choice programs, and in workforce hiring and promotions?
"The intent is clearly to apply pretty broadly to a lot of programs, really, anything that has to do with race or a proxy for race, which I think makes it broadest of all," Martin said. "It's possible that the intention is to cast a wide net now and kind of narrow that down as we go into the enforcement phase."
Trainor's letter, in fact, said OCR plans to issue additional legal guidance "in due course." But for now, he said that "relying on non-racial information as a proxy for race, and making decisions based on that information, violates the law."
"For decades, schools have been operating on the pretext that selecting students for ‘diversity’ or similar euphemisms is not selecting them based on race. No longer," Trainor said in a Feb. 18 Education Department statement following up on the Dear Colleague letter. "Students should be assessed according to merit, accomplishment, and character — not prejudged by the color of their skin."
The statement said schools have been notified that they can't use race preferences or stereotypes "as a factor in their admissions, hiring, promotion, compensation, scholarships, prizes, administrative support, sanctions, discipline, and beyond."
On Tuesday, Trainor said in an email that the directive is not complicated. When in doubt, he said, schools should use a "test" according to the OCR letter: "If an educational institution treats a person of one race differently than it treats another person because of that person’s race, the educational institution violates the law.”
The letter was praised by Erika Donalds, chair of American First Policy Center, a conservative think tank, who wrote on social media on Feb. 15, "Good to see American tax dollars refocused on meaningful instruction and not divisive ideology in our K-12 schools!"
The Department of Government Efficiency, a temporary office charged by President Donald Trump to eliminate federal waste, said on social media that the letter means states have "14 days to remove all DEI programming in all public schools." Noncompliance could result in a loss of federal funding, the X post said.
PEN America, a free expression advocacy group, said the directive threatens to declare that diversity-related programming and promotion of diversity-related ideas in schools are civil rights violations.
"This declaration has no basis in law and is an affront to the freedom of speech and ideas in educational settings," PEN America said in a Feb. 15 statement. "It represents yet another twisting of civil rights law in an effort to demand ideological conformity by schools and universities and to do away with critical inquiry about race and identity."
The OCR letter specifically refers to the U.S. Supreme Court's 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard striking down race-conscious college admissions practices. Opponents of the decision maintained that race-conscious policies help reduce barriers for Black, Hispanic and Indigenous students who have historically been disadvantaged in college opportunities.
At the K-12 level, the Supreme Court has declined to hear oral arguments in two race-based admissions challenges: Boston Parent Coalition For Academic Excellence Corp. v. The School Committee for the City of Boston and TJ v. Fairfax County School Board.
Laura Spitalniak, an editor at Higher Ed Dive, contributed to this story.
