MN Dept. of Ed won’t comply with federal DEI rules
Flickr, Photo By: U.S. Department of State (IIP Bureau) via CC BY-NC 2.0
The Minnesota Department of Education will not comply with federal reforms that include curbing the use of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs in K-12 education.
The U.S. Department of Education sent letters to K-12 state commissioners requesting them to certify compliance with “antidiscrimination obligations in order to continue receiving federal financial assistance. Specifically, the Department requests certification of compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the responsibilities outlined in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard.”
The compliance letter states that “any violation of Title VI—including the use of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (‘DEI’) programs to advantage one’s race over another—is impermissible.”
Commissioner Jett did not sign the compliance request, nor will the Minnesota Department of Education require its local education agencies to certify compliance, and instead responded with a letter stating that there “is nothing unlawful in the principles underlying programs that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion” and questioned whether the U.S. Dept. of Education has the legal authority to issue the conditions. (However, local school districts themselves can still decide to sign the compliance certification, and given the number of areas within education where Minnesota is a local-control state, the state department’s own authority over school districts has its limitations.)
“Federal financial assistance is a privilege, not a right,” says Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor. “When state education commissioners accept federal funds, they agree to abide by federal antidiscrimination requirements.”
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. …[T]he Department is taking an important step toward ensuring that states understand—and comply with—their existing obligations under civil rights laws and Students v. Harvard.
According to Jett, Minnesota’s programs already abide by federal law. “To the extent that [the U.S. Dept. of Education] has identified specific activities related to diversity, equity, and inclusion that it believes violate Title VI, we request advisement of them.”
The U.S. Dept. of Education Office for Civil Rights sent out a Dear Colleague Letter in February that states DEI programs can “deny students the ability to participate fully in the life of a school” when they “stigmatize students who belong to particular racial groups based on crude racial stereotypes” and teach that students of those racial groups “bear unique moral burdens that others do not.”
While this doesn’t mean topics related to race or DEI can’t be discussed, “the First Amendment rights of students, faculty, and staff, and the curricular prerogatives of states and local school agencies do not relieve schools of their Title VI obligations to refrain from creating hostile environments through race-based policies and stereotypes; nor does it relieve them of their duty to respond to racial harassment that creates a hostile environments,” explains the U.S. Dept. of Education Office for Civil Rights.
For example, an elementary school that sponsors programming that acts to shame students of a particular race or ethnicity, accuse them of being oppressors in a racial hierarchy, ascribe to them less value as contributors to class discussions because of their race, or deliberately assign them intrinsic guilt based on the actions of their presumed ancestors or relatives in other areas of the world could create a racially hostile environment, by interfering with or limiting the students’ ability to participate in or benefit from the school’s program or activity. But exploration of similar themes in a class discussion at a university or other college-level programs or activities would be less likely to create a racially hostile environment. In all cases, the facts and circumstances of the discussion or activity will dictate the answer to that inquiry.
State leaders have until April 24 to sign the U.S. Dept. of Education’s compliance requests. According to an Education Week tally as of April 23, 19 states and Puerto Rico have said they intend to sign the certification, with 16 states (including Minnesota) declining to sign. “The remaining states either are still reviewing the certification and haven’t indicated their intentions or haven’t yet made public comments on the matter,” reports Education Week.
Federal funds made up about 8 percent (7.9 percent) — $1.4 billion — of Minnesota’s K-12 education revenue for fiscal year 2024, the most recently available data. Historically, it has ranged between four to six percent of total revenues, spiking during the COVID years and in 2010. Federal aid is forecasted to drop back down to five percent for 2025 now that the COVID money has expired.
State Responses to U.S. Dept. of Education’s Certification Request
