By Briana Keenan
Correspondent
A letter from the United States Department of Education sent on Feb. 27 stated that it could cut federal funding from schools that continue to teach diversity, equity and inclusion in its curriculum, according to AP News. However, curriculum with DEI continues to be taught in many schools, despite these executive orders.
Since Feb. 27, the U.S. ED released new information that was described as a way of “softening” and “reversing” some of the mandate’s requests, according to USA Today. One acknowledgement made by the U.S. ED was that the federal government has no control over what schools can or cannot include in their curriculum.
“Hopefully, schools take that information and realize that just because something deals with race doesn’t mean it violates the law,” Ray Li, a former attorney in the U.S. ED’s civil rights office, told USA Today. “Even this administration recognizes that.”
Despite the statements from the federal government requesting to cut DEI curriculum, some schools are reported to continue teaching a race-based curriculum. According to The New York Times, schools in New York are continuing to leave race studies in their curriculum as a form of resistance.
ABC News reported that in September 2024, a Black studies curriculum for kindergarten through 12th grade was being implemented in New York City schools after nearly three years of development .
“This is something I think that will be amazing for all children in New York City public schools,” Sony Douglass of Teachers College at Columbia University said to ABC News.
Despite the excitement of many New York educators, the federal government still wants to limit programs like these in some capacity, not even a full year after they were implemented, according to The New York Times.
According to NPR, Craig Trainor, the department's acting assistant secretary for civil rights, said DEI programs go against the Supreme Court’s ruling on affirmative action, which states that colleges and universities cannot consider race when determining whether or not qualified applicants should be accepted into their programs.
As a response to the “Dear Colleague” letter the Trump Administration released, the National Education Association filed a lawsuit. The lawsuit, written in partnership with the American Civil Liberties Union, not only mentions why they think that DEI curriculum should not be punished, but how it also violates the constitutional right to public education, where 90% of students and 95% of students with disabilities learn.
“There's a fine line between removing programs that are considered to be discriminatory by race and removing programs that speak to a cultural or ethnicity support for students,” Cynthia Jackson-Hammond, president of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, told NPR.
In addition to DEI curriculum, the federal funding for schools being put at risk also includes programs that support students with disabilities, student loans, Title IX and free or reduced lunch programs, according to NPR.
“These are programs that families and kids rely upon,” said New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin to NPR. “And if the president wants to get rid of them, the appropriate way to do it is through Congress.”
ABC News also reported that the National Institutes of Health is starting to end grants for research projects related to DEI and LGBTQ+ studies. The institute gave several researchers a 24-hour termination letter at various universities regarding projects that are currently being studied. It is unclear what the institute defines as DEI activities or language, according to ABC News.
“Once a school sends the message that they are not going to stand up for a member, a community within their school, that is broken trust, that is a lost relationship,” said Liz King, senior director for the education equity program at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, to AP News.
