WASHINGTON, D.C.—The United States Department of Education on February 14 sent an ultimatum to all education agencies and institutions throughout the country, end what it called “insidious” DEI policies within 14 days or “face potential loss of federal funding.”
In the letter penned by Craig Trainor, Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights for the United States Department of Education, he opened stating, “Discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin is illegal and morally reprehensible” and stated that “under the banner of ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI),’” educational institutions are not only practicing discrimination, they are “toxically” indoctrinating students with “the false premise that the United States is built upon ‘systemic and structural racism.’”
“DEI programs, for example, frequently preference certain racial groups and teach students that certain racial groups bear unique moral burdens that others do not,” he wrote. “Such programs stigmatize students who belong to particular racial groups based on crude racial stereotypes.”
Trainor also took aim at non-racial information as a proxy for determining race, by stating this “violates the law.”
“A school may not use students’ personal essays, writing samples, participation in extracurriculars, or other cues as a means of determining or predicting a student’s race and favoring or disfavoring such students,” Trainor wrote.
Educational agencies across the country that receive federal funding now have until February 28 to comply with the following of lose all their federal funding:
- Ensure that their policies and actions comply with existing civil rights law;
- Cease all efforts to circumvent prohibitions on the use of race by relying on proxies or other indirect means to accomplish such ends; and
- Cease all reliance on third-party contractors, clearinghouses, or aggregators that are being used by institutions in an effort to circumvent prohibited uses of race.
“The Department will vigorously enforce the law on equal terms as to all preschool, elementary, secondary, and postsecondary educational institutions, as well as state educational agencies, that receive financial assistance,” Trainor wrote.
The Department of Education set up the following hotline for the public to report noncompliance with its ultimatum to educational agencies and institutions: File a Complaint: Discrimination Form | U.S. Department of Education
“If an educational institution treats a person of one race differently than it treats another person because of that person’s race, the educational institution violates the law,” Trainor wrote.
According to The Federalist Society, Craig Trainor previously served as Senior Special Counsel with the U.S. House of Representatives Jim Jordan (OH-04) on the Judicial Committee, Senior Litigation Counsel with the America First Policy Institute under former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi who was recently appointed U.S. Attorney General, and Of Counsel with The Fairness Center. He was a criminal defense and civil rights lawyer in New York City and served as a New York City prosecutor.
Author: Mario Lotmore
9 Responses
Trainor’s letter is very sobering. If real, this suggests that the very teaching of Jim Crow laws and the Dred Scott decision might engender moral angst or shame in some, so the practice would now be forbidden and vanquished to the Orwellian memory hole for fear of the perpetuation of “vile ethnic stereotypes.” This Trainor letter is troubling on many levels beyond the obvious, which is that it suggests the Federal weaponization of anti-discrimination laws to literally and figuratively whitewash American history of its ugliest chapter. We can argue whether efforts to correct the consequences of that history have gone too far. But to outlaw the very teaching of what gave rise to the dillema on the basis of hurt feelings seems to be a lurch in the exact opposite direction. Can our populace be this vapid and incapable of critical thought or have we all been sufficiently dumbed down? I pray not.
The unintended consequence of the policies extorted by this letter, since Federal education funding will be withheld without strict compliance effective March 1, 2025, will be the eradication of the American social safety net. Why should the old, the infirmed, the mentally ill, those with special needs, the small businesses, those in need of financial aid, those in need of student loans (private or public), those in need of Social Security, those who lost homes due to catastrophic weather events, those in need of any assistance whatsoever from the Federal government receive any sort of special dispensation at all?
Why should anyone receive a military deferment? Under that sort of world, our President would have most certainly died on the killing fields of Vietnam instead of receiving a medical waiver. No one would receive help from FEMA, after all, why are we subsidizing their illogical choice to live in hurricane and wild fire ravaged areas? No one would receive Social Security, after all, how on Earth could one expect to receive a lifetime nnuity based off of a mere 7% savings rate? Any financial calculator will reveal that Social Security recipients receive welfare from the current working generation. Child labor? Public education? K-12 education? Child hunger programs? Housing? Hell, Medicaid? Why should we subsidize ANYONE else? Kill or be killed. This is the new American ethos.
Be very careful the world you wish for. You may not be able to handle a truly level playing field. The power of the Federal government has always been to enact policy to stitch together a better society. One can argue that in limited zero sum instance, some may have been harmed. But to throw out the baby with the bath water and now claim zero tolerance is very shortsighted. Again.
Beware the level playing field you ask for. I am disturbed, but prepared for this sort of harsh, uncaring, unempathetic world. Are you?
You’re going to have to explain to me how the extension of your claims in paragraphs 2 & 3 relate to eliminating DEI in classrooms. Most of what you claim to be unintended consequences will not come to fruition due to other protections afforded to these groups. Here are some observations from a study by Goldwater Institute:
New Study Confirms What Common Sense Tells Us About DEI
December 2, 2024
by Tim Minella
Students taught the key ideas in “anti-racism” and “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) efforts are more likely to imagine the presence of racism when there is no evidence for it.
This is one important conclusion of a recently released psychological study from Rutgers University and the Network Contagion Research Institute.
This academically rigorous investigation provides the latest confirmation that “education” in DEI concepts produces utterly perverse outcomes. People subjected to DEI indoctrination become more likely to imagine the presence of bigotry where none exists, more willing to punish those who have done nothing wrong, and more open to agreeing with claims that certain groups are “parasites,” “a virus,” and “the devil personified.”
It’s worth briefly summarizing the details of this important study.
Researchers had college students read one of two essays. The first essay discussed the production of corn in the United States. It had nothing to do with race or racism. The second essay was adapted from the writings of Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo, two of the leading authors in DEI pedagogy. This essay claimed that “white people raised in Western society are conditioned into a white supremacist worldview. Racism is the norm; it is not unusual.”
Students were then asked to evaluate the following scenario: “A student applied to an elite East Coast university in Fall 2024. During the application process, he was interviewed by an admissions officer. Ultimately, the student’s application was rejected.”
Despite the scenario providing no evidence of racial bias or discrimination, students who read the Kendi/DiAngelo essay perceived more bigotry in the encounter than those who read the corn essay. The Kendi/DiAngelo readers reported that the student experienced more “microaggressions,” that the student experienced more harm, and that the admissions officer was more biased. Amazingly, the Kendi/DiAngelo readers were more likely to report that the student was “a person of color,” despite the scenario providing zero information about the student’s race and ethnicity.
And it gets worse. Despite a total lack of evidence that the admissions officer treated the applicant in a biased fashion, Kendi/DiAngelo readers demonstrated more willingness to punish the officer by demanding a public apology or forcing the officer to take a DEI course.
Finally, in a follow-up study that exposed participants to DEI-infused materials on the supposed caste oppression in Hindu culture, those who read the DEI materials were more willing to endorse eliminationism claims adapted from Adolf Hitler. Researchers replaced “Jews” in Hitler quotations with “Brahmins,” a particular caste charged with oppressing other castes. Those who read the DEI materials were much more likely to agree that “Brahmins are parasites,” “Brahmins are a virus,” and “Brahmins are the devil personified.”
This result disturbingly suggests that “education” in DEI concepts prompts the endorsement of violent “resistance” against groups deemed “oppressors,” without regard for an individual’s guilt or innocence.
Suddenly, the celebration of the October 7 attacks against Israel at elite campuses—with Israelis and Jews cast in the role of “oppressors”—doesn’t seem so strange.
This academic study only confirms what common sense and plain observation suggest. By teaching that modern American society is systemically bigoted against various minority groups, DEI trains Americans to view themselves as victims of a rigged system. Indoctrinating students with this poisonous ideology during their formative years in school and college destroys any chance that they will develop an informed appreciation of American institutions, including our magnificent Constitution.
And nearly every day, more evidence comes to light that demonstrates the destructive nature of DEI on college campuses in particular. A recent blockbuster report on the University of Michigan revealed that, similar to the findings of the Rutgers study, surveys showed that students perceived the campus climate to be less welcoming than in the years prior to the creation of a gigantic DEI apparatus. The University System of Georgia recently became the latest of many prominent universities to drop the use of faculty “diversity statements,” which coerced applicants to pledge fealty to the DEI program as a condition of hiring and advancement. Many schools across the country have shut down their DEI offices.
But while actions like the ending of diversity statements and the closing of DEI offices are welcome, they fail to address the destructive presence of DEI in college classrooms.
It’s bad enough that a university forces any student or faculty member to undergo mandatory DEI training. It’s even worse that, according to a recent study by Speech First, over two-thirds of major universities require students to take DEI courses that instruct them in the loathsome ideas of figures like Kendi and DiAngelo.
The Goldwater Institute has made similar findings. At the University of Arizona, students must take courses in “Diversity and Equity” as part of their general education program. As a Goldwater report revealed, a course fulfilling this requirement taught that “Racism is deeply embedded in U.S. history, society, and institutions. It is systemic … White people hold unearned privilege while people of color have not had equal access to the ‘American Dream.’” Another Goldwater study found that a required course for journalism students at Arizona State University contained readings that advised students to avoid purportedly racist “micro-aggressions,” such as the innocuous statement, “I believe the most qualified person should get the job.” According to the course reading, this statement communicated that “people of color are given extra unfair benefits because of their race.”
Of all the important figures, books, and ideas that students could conceivably study in college, it is a travesty that universities force them to spend time and tuition dollars on ideological indoctrination that destroys trust and a sense of belonging. As the authors of the Rutgers study wrote, “Educational materials from some of the most well published and well known DEI scholars not only failed to positively enhance interracial attitudes, they provoked baseless suspicion and encouraged punitive attitudes.”
If public universities insist on forcing students into these courses, then elected officials in the states must act. Fortunately, Goldwater and Speech First have developed the Freedom from Indoctrination Act, a reform that puts an end to DEI course requirements. Furthermore, it prevents universities from compelling professors to include DEI content in their courses, a clear violation of academic freedom. Finally, the Freedom from Indoctrination Act requires public universities’ general education programs to provide basic instruction in important elements of the American system of self-government, including the Constitution, the separation of powers, freedom of speech, and landmark Supreme Court cases.
Academic studies are now confirming what should have been clear in the beginning. DEI doesn’t just fail to make people kinder and more tolerant. It most likely leads to more hatred, more distrust, and greater willingness to punish the innocent.
In a nation made up of people from a staggering array of backgrounds and cultures, this poisonous ideology will destroy the bonds that unite us as Americans—if we allow it.
Timothy K. Minella is Senior Constitutional Fellow at the Goldwater Institute’s Van Sittert Center for Constitutional Advocacy
This is just one of several analyses I found about DEI that creates more harm than good. Does Mukilteo’s DEI Commission ever discuss these issues?
I believe that the nation was moved emotionally to finally address the plight of Black Americans and that the civil society compact was finally thus extended to include us in the 1960’s. The Civil War preserved the union; the 14th aqmendment granted a hollow citizenship to people harassed out of ever enjoying the blessings of that citizenship until the country was moved emotionally to extend the compact to its Black brethren, that moral arc that wiser men once spoke of. That civil society compact recognizes the need for an economic safety net to provide for humane treatment and certain minimum living standards for all, in order to preserve the very society itself. Eliminating from our textbooks and classrooms the history of the perils that caused the moral angst to warrant extending that compact imperils us all.
This is not an academic exercise. Trainor’s letter explicitly asserts that anti-discrimination laws make it illegal to consider that Blacks, or anyone, might deserve special dispensation or consideration due to their historic mistreatment. Well, let’s live in Trainor’s ideal world, Florida, where state law describes any empathy for anyone else as being “woke”. In this world, let’s remove all consideration for special dispensation or consideration for any reason. If we do that, I struggle to udnerstand why anyone would receive special dispensation. Why then would we have handicapped access, social safety net programs for the elderly or the young, military options to avoid compulsory service, or even small business preferential programs, or tax breaks and subsidies for certain business practices or investments? All of those uneven dispensations take a benefit away from one in order to give it to the other. Yet, some may serve a greater good in engineering a more perfect union.
Regarding the academic study citing the harms of DEI, I can cite numerous studies asserting just the opposite. Suffice it to say that harnessing and using all of our talents seems better to me than only using some of them. I’ll read the study you cite and revert with more obersvations shortly.
Thank you for offering a point of view I had not considered. I always welcome conversation.
Oh Patti, you should read carefully the Trainor letter.
“Other programs discriminate in less direct, but equally insidious, ways. DEI programs, for example, frequently preference certain racial groups and teach students that certain racial groups bear unique moral burdens that others do not. Such programs stigmatize students who belong to particular racial groups based on crude racial stereotypes. Consequently, they deny students the ability to participate fully in the life of a school. The Department will no longer tolerate the overt and covert racial discrimination that has become widespread in this Nation’s educational institutions. The law is clear: treating students differently on the basis of race to achieve nebulous goals such as diversity, racial balancing, social justice, or equity is illegal under controlling Supreme Court precedent.
All students are entitled to a school environment free from discrimination. The Department is committed to ensuring those principles are a reality. This letter provides notice of the Department’s existing interpretation of federal law. Additional legal guidance will follow in due course. The Department will vigorously enforce the law on equal terms as to all preschool, elementary, secondary, and postsecondary educational institutions, as well as state educational agencies, that receive financial assistance. ”
While that may sound good to you, you may not be considering that his test includes overt and covert discrimination evidenced solely by how someone feels. Imagine a world where German children are told they should bear no moral burden for their ancestors’ participation in the holocaust. Yet, I am to be lectured into silence and off my literal moral high ground when the very mention of the historic and undeniable ill treatment of Blacks causes some child today to feel morally burdened? If any child feels morally burdened by atrocity, I say God bless that child and the empathetic and kind parents who are raising her to be sympathetic to the challenges of others. Those children will save our world.
The very equal protection laws you cite are being perverted by Trainor to remove teaching the actual ugly history that may lead someone to feel they are being stigmatized by vile stereotypes. Which child exactly is being stigmatized by vile stereotypes in a study of American history? A black one or a white one? It’s obvious to me which children’s egos he is protecting. How are we able to teach the holocaust without new laws protecting the feelings of white children? That’s what Kendi does. He focuses the issue so that the perverse cqn no longer be excused nd the human result is guilt and shame. Thank God people still have some.
The bigger problem though is this protection strips the context away from the child. My argument is very simple. If you want a level playing field, let’s have it. I am a VERY competitive person and relish the chance to prove myself on a level playing field. But let’s have it be honestly and evenly applied in every sphere. No more special dispensations period. No more special considerations for anyone lest anyone be unduly morally burdened. Again, let that one sink in and let’s extend it to its ultimate extent. The entire country is replete with social policy that is nothing but special dispensation, so I find it rich with irony that the one dispensation that gores the ox of some whites in our country is the one where at long last a token dispensation is afforded to Blacks.
Now let’s turn to the Supreme Court decision referenced by Trainor. I find it very odd that no one else makes this argument. Race based decisionmaking in university admission harmed one white person so much that they sued. Think of the irony of it. If a handful of seats are set aside for whatever pet project and you are so uncompetitive that you are contending only for those marginal seats at the bottom, maybe instead of suing, you should study harder in order to be more competitive for the many more competitive seats available.
This country was built for white men only. Blacks were not envisioned in its conception. After 400 years of social engineering to provide economic advantages and outright economic gifts to white men, it is cruel to now remove the gift of social engineering from the Blacks who had been so aggrievously harmed throughout the entire history of this country. To deny that burden would require ignorance of history, which appears to be the goal by people like Mr. Trainor.
I’ll no longer sugar coat it, DEI is critically important. Of course the coutnrgy was structurally and systemically racist. It was so structurally and systemically racist it required a civil war, multiple Supreme Court decisions and a host of legislation, laws and regulation to attempt to redress America’s systemic racism. What? Did the country go mad and do all of this in a vqcuum? I contend this is what you would have me believe andc we both know in our hearts this is simply not so. It simply isn’t. I won’t be gas-lit and neither should you.
It’s interesting to note that you can’t acknowledge the lived experiences cited in this study.
I have no problem with accurate history of this country being incorporated into our nation’s curriculum if it is done as part of a holistic approach to educating students. One of the reasons DEI is being dead panned is due to what some classrooms are advocating for students. White guilt, white privilege is sometimes the overriding theme being taught in a hateful manner rather than an informative way to educate students. I don’t think that this is a compelling approach to help students appreciate past history mistakes.
DEI, as it is currently defined, is not tailored to help people understand past mistakes, but rather to incite guilt in inappropriate ways that are not convincing to the audience you wish to reach.
In my view, DEI is being scapegoated by political shills and it has metastasized to a movement capturing the group thought of good people like you. In my lived experience, no one is saying these things.
So students in this study, and others, are political shills for voicing their true lived experiences. Good to know. Trust me, like many people who advocate for issues in the country, you’re not going to win anyone over with your attitude, and denying that DEI in the classroom has not always been taught in a thoughtful manner.
Below is an excerpt of Dred Scott v. John Sandford. I think children should learn this history. Why do you think they should not?
On March 6, 1857, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney read the majority opinion of the Court, which stated that enslaved people were not citizens of the United States and, therefore, could not expect any protection from the federal government or the courts. The opinion also stated that Congress had no authority to ban slavery from a federal territory. This decision moved the nation a step closer to the Civil War.
The decision of Scott v. Sandford, considered by many legal scholars to be the worst ever rendered by the Supreme Court, was overturned by the 13th and 14th amendments to the Constitution, which abolished slavery and declared all persons born in the United States to be citizens of the United States.
“A free negro of the African race, whose ancestors were brought to this country and sold as slaves, is not a “citizen” within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States.
When the Constitution was adopted, they were not regarded in any of the States as members of the community which constituted the State, and were nut numbered among its “people or citizen.” Consequently, the special rights and immunities guarantied to citizens do not apply to them. And not being “citizens” within the meaning of the Constitution, they are not entitled to sue in that character in a court of the United States, and the Circuit Court has not jurisdiction in such a suit.
The only two clauses in the Constitution which point to this race, treat them as persons whom it was morally lawful to deal in as articles of property and to hold as slaves.”
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I am not trying to win anyone over. I am advocating teaching history. You keep conflating that with teaching DEI. We have a disconnect there.
I already told you that I have no problem incorporating history into the curriculum that reflects past injustices using a holistic approach. You haven’t addressed this possibility but rather keep harping on the past injustices. No one disputes that history has not been taught to students reflecting these injustices. You don’t have to give anymore examples.
I’m not conflating teaching history versus DEI. DEI arose with some examples of students being taught hateful things about themselves. You can easily Google some of these examples.