The Trump administration contends that they violate Student for Fair Admissions v. Harvard law and violate national anti-discrimination rules.
The Education Department of President Donald Trump just published a significant report on diversity, equity, and inclusion in higher education, stating that DEI initiatives are basically biased and that colleges and universities may lose federal funding if they employ them.
A letter from the Office for Civil Rights late on Friday contends that Title VI is violated because La programs frequently discriminate against people of color. Additionally, the text asserted that the Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard from 2023 contains more than just outlawing race-based admissions practices.
” Although SFFA addressed admissions decisions, the Supreme Court’s having applies more widely. The basic tenet of the exam is simple: If an educational establishment treats a man of one culture different than it does a man of another culture because of that person’s race, the educational institution breaks the law,” states the letter, which was penned by Craig Trainor, acting associate director for civil rights.
” Federal law so prohibits included companies from using race in decisions pertaining to enrollment, hiring, promotion, compensation, financial aid, scholarships, awards, administrative support, discipline, housing, graduation rites, and all other elements of student, academic, and campus life”, the letter says.
Simply put, educational institutions are not permitted to divide or separate individuals based on their educational background.
culture, nor distribute rewards or obligations based on race”.
Many universities, including those that are associated with shared cultural backgrounds, special programs and scholarships based on race, and other such programs would be considered a national law violation by the Trump presidency.
La programs “frequently favors particular cultural groups and teaches students that particular cultural organizations bear distinct spiritual burdens that others do not.” According to the email,” Such applications stigmatize students who belong to certain racial groups based on crude cultural stereotypes.”
The Department will stop tolerating the blatant and secret racial bias that exists today.
has become popular in this Nation’s academic organizations. The law is clear: treating students separately on the basis of race to obtain nebulous goals such as variety, cultural managing, social justice, or collateral is illegal under controlling Supreme Court precedent”.
The letter threatens to “yank federal funds from campuses where there is evidence of discrimination based on race” and “cease all efforts to circumvent prohibitions on the use of race by relying on proxies or other indirect means to accomplish such ends.”
In articles published over the weekend by the Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed, a number of people have expressed opposition to the letter.
Democratic Sen. Patty Murray said in a statement that” this threat to rip away the federal funding our public K-12 schools and colleges receive flies in the face of the law.” ” While it’s anyone’s guess what falls under the Trump administration’s definition of ‘ DEI,’ there is simply no authority or basis for Trump to impose such a mandate”.
Art Coleman, founding partner of EducationCounsel, which advises colleges on admissions, told the Chronicle on Sunday:” There are conceptual nuggets in the letter that I think are right, like the simple premise that the SFFA decision likely extends beyond the contours of an admissions decision. I think it’s undeniably true. However, the decision does not imply that it applies to all settings or that it is merely a cookie-cutter extension, as the letter suggests.
The letter was” truly dystopian,” according to Brian Rosenberg, former head of Macalester College and visiting professor of education at Harvard. Rosenberg, according to the outlet, believes that if implemented, it would overturn decades of cherished programs and initiatives to improve success and access for marginalized students.
He wrote,” It goes far beyond the Supreme Court decision on admissions and declares illegal a wide range of common practices.” There has never been any government agency in the United States that has written this kind of language.
MORE: Justice Dept. spent$ 100M pushing DEI in schools
IMAGE: White House
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