The State of California joined several other states Friday in suing the Trump administration over a policy banning “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) in federally-funded schools, despite its own Proposition 209.
Earlier in April, the Trump administration’s Department of Education ordered states to certify that they and their local school districts were obeying federal civil rights laws, and not using “illegal DEI practices.”
On Thursday, a federal judge blocked the policy in a private lawsuit. And on Friday, 19 states — all governed by Democrats — sued the administration over its policy, claiming that DEI policies are necessary.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that California is among the states suing the administration over DEI:
California is suing the Trump administration over its threats to pull public school funding because of diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Education threatened to revoke funds from schools that don’t terminate their DEI programs. In a lawsuit filed Friday in federal court, California and 18 other states argue the loss of those funds would be “catastrophic.”
“The U.S. Department of Education is unapologetically abandoning its mission to ensure equal access to education with its latest threat to wholesale terminate congressionally mandated federal education funding,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta wrote in a statement. “Once again, the President has exceeded his authority under the Constitution and violated the law.”
Ironically, California’s Proposition 209, passed by voters in 1996, bans the use of affirmative action “in the areas of public employment, public education, and public contracting to the extent these programs involve “preferential treatment” based on race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin.” While DEI goes further than hiring and admissions, California is essentially suing the Trump administration for adopting its own policy.
California voters affirmed Proposition 209 in 2020 by voting down Proposition 16, which sought to reverse it — the same year in which the same voters overwhelmingly chose Democrat Joe Biden over Donald Trump.
In a further irony, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has threatened to pull funding from school districts that fail to comply with left-wing curricula on LGBTQ+ issues, and signed legislation to that effect in 2023.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
