The Department of Education is advising educational institutions to ensure their policies and actions comply with existing civil rights laws in order to maintain federal funding.
The US Department of Education has warned schools that they must eliminate all diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs within the next two weeks or risk losing funding. Finally, the letter’s directive officially prohibits scholarships intended to assist Black students.
In a four-page letter dated February 14, Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor explained the Department of Education’s interpretation of the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which invalidated affirmative action in education and school programming.
According to The Daily Pennsylvanian, Trainor’s letter to educational institutions explains that the Supreme Court’s decision that affirmative action policies are unconstitutional did not only apply to race-based admissions. It also covers the use of race-based considerations in all aspects.
Trainor warned schools, including preschools, elementary, secondary, and postsecondary educational institutions, that they only have 14 days to comply with the new requirements in order to continue receiving federal funding.
Board of Education Gives Schools 14 Days To Eliminate DEI Programs
Trainor advises educational institutions to ensure their policies and actions comply with existing civil rights laws.
“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,” according to the letter.
“Put simply; educational institutions may neither separate nor segregate students based on race nor distribute benefits or burdens based on race.”
The letter from the Department of Education also chastised universities for promoting “racial segregation” and other DEI programming during graduation ceremonies. Trainor characterised them as a “shameful echo of a darker period in this country’s history.”
“The Department will no longer tolerate the overt and covert racial discrimination that has become commonplace in our nation’s educational institutions.
The law is clear: treating students differently based on race in order to achieve nebulous goals like diversity, racial balancing, social justice, or equity is illegal under current Supreme Court precedent,” the letter continues.
