Education department threatens to cut funding to school districts over DEI practices

The Trump administration on Thursday threatened to pull federal funding from K-12 districts and states if they don’t certify within 10 days that they do not have unlawful diversity, equity and inclusion practices.

States have to sign and submit a certification form asserting that each of their districts do not give advantages to people based on their race, according to a memo sent to education officials by the U.S. Department of Education. The form itself warns that states or individual schools could be subject to litigation or be forced to pay back funds if they’re found to violate the law.

The directive is the latest in a series of aggressive orders the Trump administration has issued through the department — which it intends to dismantle — to drag the education sector in line with conservative orthodoxy around race and gender.

“Federal financial assistance is a privilege, not a right,” acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor said in a statement. Too many schools, Trainor asserted, use “DEI programs to discriminate against one group of Americans to favor another based on identity characteristics,” which he said violates anti-discrimination law.

The memo sent a “shock wave” through the education world Thursday, said Jonathan Collins, co-director of the politics and education program at Columbia University’s Teachers College. He sees the certification form as a green light to let the federal government comb through districts’ policies, curricular units and other activities to “essentially plant red flags when they see issues.”

“This is quite unprecedented,” Collins said.

While no school has lost federal funding over civil rights violations in decades — not since 1990, according to Education Week — education experts believe the Trump administration is getting closer to making that a reality for those that do not follow its directives.

The Education Department told Maine earlier this week that it may ask the Department of Justice this month to start the legal process of cutting federal dollars from the state’s education agency over policies regarding transgender student athletes. And federal agencies have frozen grants to Ivy League universities over accusations they have not sufficiently addressed antisemitism on campus.

“Is this what the Trump administration calls local control?” Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union, an advocacy organization, said in a statement. “You can’t say you’re giving control back to states and then dictate how they run their schools.”

Diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, is an umbrella term widely used in academic and workplace settings to refer to a range of activities or policies meant to level the playing field for people from historically disadvantaged backgrounds. However, critics contend DEI has been used to inappropriately boost certain students or employees based solely on their race or gender. Conservative activists began to attack DEI in recent years after accusing K-12 schools of teaching an academic concept called critical race theory. 

Michael Pillera, director of the educational opportunities project at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said even if the administration doesn’t pull funding, these directives will likely cause educators to back away from lawful activities to avoid creating a target for the Trump administration.

“The letter in no way changed the law,” said Pillera, who worked in the department’s civil rights office until he resigned last month. “All that changed is the department’s behavior and its desire to intimidate and chill activities and school districts.”

States and schools already have to agree that they will not violate federal civil rights laws if they accept federal funding under Title I, which helps schools with high numbers of impoverished students. The new form attempts to go further, drawing on an earlier directive from the department, sent Feb. 14, that gave schools 14 days to stop using race in admissions, hiring, financial aid, discipline, grading and other aspects of school life.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the National Education Association are suing the department, arguing that the Feb. 14 letter oversteps the government’s legal authority and threatens educators’ First Amendment rights. The case is still pending, and the department asked this week for an extension until April 11 to file a response, according to court records.

The Education Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Thursday’s memo referred to a frequently asked questions document it issued in February that elaborated on potential violations of anti-discrimination laws. It said the department would consider the facts and circumstances of each case to determine violations, and balance those concerns against First Amendment protections.

Liz King, senior director of education policy at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, an advocacy group, said the latest directive could become a “gotcha game” where violations are decided based on how they comport with Trump’s agenda, rather than legal precedent.

“Of course there’s a deadline,” King said. “This is only the latest fire drill in a campaign of chaos and fear.”