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In May, the Long Beach Unified School District in California will open the Center of Black Student Excellence, which it calls a “bold step in the district’s ongoing efforts to address systemic harm” by providing extra support for Black students.
Leaders say they have no plans to hit pause on the project despite a Feb. 14 letter from the U.S. Department of Education that warns against efforts to “preference certain racial groups.” The strongly worded message from Craig Trainor, the top civil rights official at the department, said schools could be investigated for treating “students differently on the basis of race.”
The Long Beach community asked for “a space that lifts the experience of Black youth,” said Deputy Superintendent Tiffany Brown, adding that the district has a “commitment to listen to those voices.”
Long Beach is not alone. While many school leaders bristled at the letter’s tone, several left-leaning states and districts have since countered Trainor’s threats with tough statements of their own.
“We’re going to be as inclusive as we’ve always been,” said Gustavo Balderas, superintendent of the Beaverton School District in Oregon. He called the department’s letter “an attempt to bully” districts. “Let’s not be hyper-reactive to things that come out right now.”
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey said in a statement that DEI efforts make the state stronger. California state Superintendent Tony Thurmond assured districts that memos can’t override existing law or “impose new terms on existing agreements.” And Illinois state chief Tony Sanders reminded educators that state law requires instruction on the history of different racial groups and LGBTQ issues.
The letter is part of the Trump administration’s larger DEI offensive, which has included terminations of government employees and the cancellation of millions of dollars in contracts related to equity goals.
On Thursday, the department unveiled EndDEI, a website where the public can report schools they think are illegally discriminating against students.
Many districts and advocacy organizations like AASA, the School Superintendents Association, have homed in on a footnote in Trainor’s letter stating that it “does not have the force and effect of law and does not bind the public or create new legal standards.”
“It is just a letter. It’s not rules or regs. It’s not changing law,” said Sonia Park, executive director of the Diverse Charter Schools Association, a network with member schools nationwide. “We have diverse in our name. It’s not something we’re going to fade away from.”
The letter referenced Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, a 2023 ruling in which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down racial preferences in college admissions. But some experts say the letter is inconsistent with the court’s opinion.
“The letter goes far beyond what the Supreme Court said in SFFA, and, indeed, even contradicts it,” said Neal McCluskey, director of the Center for Educational Freedom at the libertarian Cato Institute. Trainor, for example, said that when making admission decisions, colleges can’t factor essays in which students write about the role of race in their lives.
But that’s the opposite of what the court ruled, McCluskey said. In the majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts said nothing in the ruling “should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration or otherwise.”
According to Madison Biedermann, a spokeswoman for the department, officials plan to issue additional guidance. Andrew Manna, an Indianapolis-area education lawyer, said it might also take an actual complaint against a district or an OCR investigation to get clarity on what officials consider to be illegal discrimination.
But some welcome the department’s more muscular approach.
“I think, and hope, the department will be at least as strict as the Obama administration was,” said Neeraja Deshpande, a policy analyst at the conservative Independent Women’s Forum. She’s referring to a 2014 dear colleague letter alerting districts that they risked civil rights investigations if they disproportionately disciplined Black and Hispanic students. A few months later, OCR launched an investigation into the Milwaukee Public Schools, later finding over 100 instances where Black students were disciplined more harshly than their white peers for similar infractions.
“This is a fundamental question of fairness, as was SFFA,” Deshpande said. “OCR should absolutely go after schools that undermine fairness via unfair DEI preferences.”
Groups or classes that divide students by race or extra academic support aimed at specific racial groups are among the practices that Parents Defending Education, a conservative advocacy group, argues are illegal.
The American Federation of Teachers, along with AFT-Maryland and the American Sociological Association, is challenging the letter. They filed a lawsuit in federal court Tuesday, saying the “vague and clearly unconstitutional memo is a grave attack on students, our profession and knowledge itself.”
‘Target-rich environment’
Leaders in more right-leaning parts of the country said they’re also not worried about Trainor’s letter, largely because lawmakers in their states have already banned DEI.
Last year, Utah, for example, passed a law that labels diversity, equity and inclusion “prohibited discriminatory practices.” When Utah’s education department gave the legislature a compliance update, there were no violations to report, state Superintendent Sydnee Dickson told The 74.
“We didn’t need to make dramatic changes in our K-12 system,” she said.
Trainor’s letter followed an earlier executive order from the president that called on the education department to devise a plan for stripping districts of their federal funds if they advance “discriminatory equity ideology.” Officials have until the end of April to devise such policies.
But the OCR letter accelerates the process, warning districts to “cease all efforts” to accomplish what it calls “nebulous” diversity goals and that it will begin taking “appropriate measures to assess compliance” March 1. The department has yet to specify what those measures might be.
Parents Defending Education has already done a lot of the work for the new administration. The organization keeps a running list of districts nationwide that have equity-related policies and initiatives. Last year, it forced the Los Angeles district to revise its Black Student Achievement Plan, which provided additional counseling and academic support in schools predominantly serving Black students. All students, not just those who are Black, are now eligible for the extra help.
The group’s list has more districts from California than from any other state.
“California is a target-rich environment for the administration’s causes,” said Laura Preston, director of government affairs for F3Law, which handles education cases throughout the state.
She suggested that the state might not want to risk the loss of federal education funds at a time when state resources are needed to rebuild parts of Los Angeles ravaged by fire. But she also questioned OCR’s ability to conduct thorough investigations when the department is cutting staff. The letter, she said, sets up a potential clash between states and the federal government. Federal law prohibits the government from mandating or controlling instruction or withholding funds from districts if they don’t comply.
“Trump keeps saying he wants states’ rights [and] then tries to be the federal school board,” she said. “It doesn’t work in the long haul.”
‘Committed to full compliance’
To show that some education leaders welcome Trainor’s message, the department last week highlighted statements from several state chiefs who agree with the letter.
“I applaud this directive from the U.S. Department of Education and Florida stands ready to assist other states to end racial preferences in education,” said Manny Diaz, Florida education commissioner. And Ellen Weaver, state superintendent in South Carolina, said her department is “committed to full compliance with the U.S. Department of Education’s directive.”
But Diaz, Weaver and Dickson from Utah were also among the 12 state education leaders who last month told Linda McMahon, Trump’s education secretary nominee, that they wanted the department to stop issuing “dear colleague” letters intended to push states to “take actions aligned to the current administration’s priorities and opinions.”
McCluskey at Cato said the letter is still consistent with their request, which was to clearly state that dear colleague letters are not legally binding. But he still finds such missives problematic.
“For all intents and purposes they impose new law, while those who issue them simultaneously claim they legally change nothing,” he said. “Of course, they shouldn’t change anything. Changing law is a legislative responsibility.”
Aaron Spence, superintendent of the Loudoun County Public Schools in Virginia — which has long been targeted on Parents Defending Education’s “IndoctriNation” map — said he’s tried to reassure the community that his district isn’t doing anything illegal, like using racial quotas or hiring staff based on race instead of qualifications.
In January 2022, just after his election, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin issued an executive order demanding that schools avoid “inherently divisive concepts.” But Spence doesn’t view his district’s DEI office to be controversial and said under federal law, districts are required to report student progress for different subgroups.
“People get this pie mentality, which is ‘Oh gosh, if they do more for this group of students, they’re doing less for this group of students,’ ” he said. “The goal for everybody is 100% success. We’re working to ensure all of them get over the bar of achievement that we’ve set for them.”
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