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The shrinking Department of Education just issues a notice to state leaders across the country reminding them that public schools are dependent on federal funds and those funds are dependent on compliance with civil rights law, specifically the elimination of DEI programs.
As a condition for receiving federal money, the Trump administration is ordering K-12 schools to certify that they are following federal civil rights laws and eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion practices.
“Federal financial assistance is a privilege, not a right,” Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights, said in a statement. He said many schools have flouted their legal obligations, “including by using DEI programs to discriminate against one group of Americans to favor another.”
The notice states the administration’s objections to DEI.
In Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College (“SFFA v. Harvard”), 600 U.S. 181 (2023), the Supreme Court held that the race-based affirmative action programs at Harvard and the University of North Carolina were illegal because they violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (for state schools like North Carolina), as well as Title VI (for state and private schools that receive federal funding like Harvard). The Court explained that the Equal Protection Clause “represent[s] a foundational principle—the absolute equality of all citizens of the United States politically and civilly before their own laws.
