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The Trump administration and the U.S. Department of Education ordered states Thursday night to scrap DEI programs for K-12 students or risk losing federal funding.
The order directs states to certify compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, the June 2023 Supreme Court ruling that banned affirmative action from college admissions.
In a Friday email to school districts, the Oregon Department of Education said it had received the message and was working in partnership with the governor’s office to evaluate the request.
The email also urged school districts to wait on ODE follow-up before replying to the federal agency. “If you’ve received a similar message from the U.S. Department of Education, please discuss with us before taking action,“ it reads. ”We remain committed to advancing policies that serve every student and reflect Oregon’s values while ensuring compliance with all applicable laws."
It wasn’t immediately clear how many Oregon school districts have diversity, equity and inclusion programs, and how many workers those programs employ.
According to EdTrust, an education research and advocacy organization, Oregon collects about $433.5 million in federal funding for pre-K to 12th grade students and $17.8 million for career and technical education programs.
“Federal financial assistance is a privilege, not a right,” Craig Trainor, the U.S. Department of Education’s acting assistant secretary for civil rights, said in a release. “Unfortunately, we have seen too many schools flout or outright violate these obligations, including by using DEI programs to discriminate against one group of Americans to favor another based on identity characteristics in clear violation of Title VI.”
If signed, the document would subject agencies to substantial liabilities if they did not comply with the law. If schools, districts or states ran DEI programs and lied, they would be subject to the False Claims Act, the document says. “Violators face penalties including treble damages and civil penalties of thousands of dollars per violation,” the certification document reads.
Demanding states comply with the Supreme Court decision in primary schools was also a step further than the administration has taken thus far. The Trump administration, as Chalkbeat has reported, has interpreted the ruling “to mean many common diversity practices are illegal,” though it initially only applied to affirmative action.
“As Chief Justice Roberts wrote, ‘Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.’ No student should be denied opportunities or treated differently because of his or her race. We hope all State and Local Education Agencies agree and certify their compliance with this legal and constitutional principle,” Trainor added.
The news comes days after the Oregon Department of Education canceled five of its programs after millions of COVID-era dollars were terminated early. Some states have already indicated they’ll try to appeal for their dollars back, but Oregon has thus far not been among them.