Feb. 18 (UPI) — The U.S. Department of Education has told educational institutions receiving federal funds to end use of affirmative action policies in a number of school-related practices across the nation.
On Tuesday, the Trump DOE announced it was ending use of racial preferences and “race stereotyping” in U.S. schools as a “first step” toward what it described as “restoring norms of free inquiry and truth-seeking” in what an official called a “victory for justice, civil rights laws, and the Constitution.”
It comes amid the president’s attack on diversity, equity and inclusion policies.
“With this guidance, the Trump Administration is directing schools to end the use of racial preferences and race stereotypes in their programs and activities,” Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor wrote in a release.
The federal government says that schools, including elementary, middle and high schools, may no longer “make decisions or operate programs based on race or race stereotypes in any of these categories or they risk losing access to federal funds.”
According to Trainor, the department will start assessing compliance no later than 14 days.
In a “Dear Colleague Letter” to American schools on the receiving end of federal funding, the department notified administrators they must cease using “illegal” race preferences and stereotypes as a factor in their admissions, hiring, promotion, compensation, scholarships, prizes, administrative support, sanctions, discipline and beyond.
It threatened U.S. schools that fail to comply may, “consistent with applicable law, face investigation and loss of federal funding” in addition to loss of funding.
DOE cited the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling on Students v. Harvard, which effectively ended affirmative action.
In August 2022, 82 companies — including Google, Meta, Apple and Starbucks — signed a Supreme Court amicus brief arguing that racial and ethnic diversity positively benefit the experience of students at the universities and leads to more diverse workplaces that “enhance business performance.”
“Although the court does not say outright that institutions cannot pursue diversity, it is not clear what diversity-related goals, if any, could constitutionally support race-conscious admissions,” Kristine Brown, a professor of law and education policy at Michigan State University, wrote in 2023.
It closed legal loopholes that colleges, universities and other higher learning institutions with selective enrollment that have allegedly been “exploiting to continue taking race into account in admissions,” according to Trump DOE officials.
The Trump administration’s Education Department claimed that the diversity, equity and inclusion “regime” in schools has been accompanied by “widespread censorship to establish a repressive viewpoint monoculture on our campuses and in our schools.”
“For decades, schools have been operating on the pretext that selecting students for ‘diversity’ or similar euphemisms is not selecting them based on race. No longer,” Trainor claimed on Tuesday. “Students should be assessed according to merit, accomplishment, and character — not prejudged by the color of their skin,” he added.
Trainor, meanwhile, added that the Office for Civil Rights “will enforce that commitment.”
“But under any banner, discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin is, has been, and will continue to be illegal,” he wrote in his dear colleague letter to U.S. schools.
