Education Dept. threatens to pull federal funding from schools that don't dump DEI
Over the weekend, the Department of Education threatened to pull federal funding from public schools that don’t dump race-conscious policies by the end of the month.
The U.S. Department of Education on Friday threatened to pull federal funding from all public schools that don’t dump diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies.
Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights at the Education Department, wrote a Dear Colleague letter in which he said schools that fail to remove DEI programming by February 28 risk “potential loss of federal funding.”
According to the Department of Government Efficiency, the letter was sent to education departments in every state. The letter applies to institutions from preschools to colleges and universities.
The letter pointed to the Supreme Court’s landmark Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard ruling, which declared affirmative action unconstitutional. Despite the decision’s focus on admissions, Trainor wrote that the SCOTUS ruling actually “applies more broadly” — from financial aid and scholarships to affinity graduation celebrations.
“Federal law thus prohibits covered entities from using race in decisions pertaining to admissions, hiring, promotion, compensation, financial aid, scholarships, prizes, administrative support, discipline, housing, graduation ceremonies, and all other aspects of student, academic, and campus life,” wrote Trainor.
Dear Colleague letters are not legally binding and are instead meant to provide guidance to institutions. However, critics are sounding off on what they see as the latest attempt by the Trump administration to do away with diversity efforts.
Janai Nelson, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, denounced the letter as “scare tactics in an attempt to force schools to get rid of programs that support underrepresented students and uplift and celebrate their identity.”
“Contrary to Trainor’s misrepresentations, Justice Kavanaugh made explicit in his SFFA concurring opinion that ‘governments and universities still ‘can, of course, act to undo the effects of past discrimination in many permissible ways that do not involve classification by race,’” wrote Nelson, debunking Trainor’s claims in a thread on Bluesky.
“No matter how much the Trump Administration twists facts, lies about the law, and weaponizes govt resources to advance an extremist white nationalist agenda, it can only succeed if its targets go along,” she continued.
Literary and free expression organization PEN America has also sounded the alarm on the Education Department’s letter.
“The administration’s outrageous ‘Dear Colleague’ letter seeks to declare it a civil rights violation for educational institutions to engage in any diversity-related programming or to promote any diversity-related ideas – potentially including everything from a panel on the Civil Rights Movement to a Lunar New Year celebration,” the organization said in a statement.
“This declaration has no basis in law and is an affront to the freedom of speech and ideas in educational settings. 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.”
They are all buckets of slime, and jealous that more women are earning degrees these days than men. Why do you suppose that is? Here’s a clue, for better or worse.
Boys have a harder time sitting still in class and paying attention. They mature later than girls do. The educational system really prefers students to sit quietly and learn. Girls are better at this than boys and young men.
In a way, it isn’t boys’ fault. Boys and girls are different from one another in terms of learning modalities. Until the system for educating boys changes, or more darkly, if these MAGAt types get their way and send girls and young women back to the kitchen, at least metaphorically, females will continue to outperform males. But if a system for effectively reaching boys is developed, things could possibly even out.
But you watch: they are going to try to find ways to keep girls from advancing through learning; they really want us barefoot and pregnant or taking care of the grandchildren.
Will this apply to any of the schools Trump and his kids attended/graduated from?