After a , the department’s Office for Civil Rights said the district must create a new division focusing on students with disabilities, improve transportation services for those students, and take steps to better identify and accommodate their needs.

“The district must take immediate action to remedy their violations and protect the rights of current and future students to a free and appropriate public education,” Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey said in a statement. 

The proposed resolution agreement also requires the district to train staff, including bus drivers, on any updated policies. If officials don’t agree to the terms, OCR “may initiate enforcement,” the announcement said. 

The district, which said from the outset that it would cooperate with the department, is “carefully reviewing” the findings, a spokesman said, adding that OCR makes important points about providing clear information to parents and getting their children to and from school. 

Neither the department nor the district, however, has made the full results of the investigation available.

With OCR largely focusing its resources on investigating districts that allow students to compete in sports or use bathrooms based on gender identity, the D.C. investigation is one of the few disability-related cases it has launched and completed since President Donald Trump returned to office. A from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which sparked the probe, found that the district has one of highest rates of special education complaints in the nation. An advisory committee to the commission determined that young children in the district were under-identified for special education services or accommodations for disabilities and that parents were often encouraged to file lawsuits in order to get their children help. 

“That obviously favors those who have means, can hire an attorney and know how to get through the system,” said Craig Leen, former vice chair of the advisory committee. A civil rights attorney who served in the Labor Department during Trump’s first term, he also struggled to get services for his daughter. Now a senior at a charter school in the district, she has autism and an intellectual disability.

The bus was often late or didn’t arrive at all, creating disruptions to his daughter’s routine, Leen said. Since the investigation began, he said he’s seen improvements. The bus comes on time, and to keep parents updated, the Office of the State Superintendent of Education, which oversees transportation for students with disabilities in both DCPS and charter schools in the city, is developing a bus .

The district, according to the spokesman, is working with the state agency to “improve real‑time visibility into bus delays to make certain students do not lose instructional time or access to required services.”

Leen said he’s not concerned about Education Secretary Linda McMahon’s plans to transfer OCR or the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services to another federal agency as she continues efforts to phase out the department. 

“My main concern is that they have a designated agency addressing special education,” he said. 

Many of the advisory committee’s recommendations were based on testimony from Maria Blaeuer, director of programs and outreach with Advocates for Justice and Education, Inc., The organization trains parents and provides to families who haven’t been able to get services for their children.

The organization is “thankful that OCR is paying attention to the many challenges that students with disabilities in the District of Columbia are facing,” Blaeuer said. But she added that it would be premature to comment on the department’s announcement “without access to the actual determination” or until a resolution has been reached.

That’s the principle the federal government has long used to investigate and remedy disparities based on race, color or national origin in education and other programs receiving federal funds. But no longer, according to a Attorney General Pam Bondi posted earlier this week. 

The regulation does not “sufficiently serve the public interest” and violates President Trump’s about promoting meritocracy, she wrote. The law, she said, “promises that people are treated as individuals, not components of a particular race or group.”

The provision stems from Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination in education, housing, health care and transportation. Historically, federal agencies used the law to warn districts that they could lose federal funds if they didn’t comply with orders to desegregate schools. Under the Department of Justice rule, officials could use data to determine whether discrimination exists. 

In a 2014 case, for example, an investigation in New Hampshire showed that under the Manchester district’s policy for assigning students to Advanced Placement and honors courses, Black students were enrolled in those classes at far lower rates. 

While Title VI applies to multiple programs and activities, from access to advanced classes to enrollment procedures, school discipline has been at the forefront of the debate over using data to prove discrimination exists. consistently shows that Black students are disciplined at higher rates than their peers, disparities that districts have been under pressure to address.

Bondi’s move to rescind the 50-year-old rule means that the government will no longer hold schools responsible for any neutral policies or behavior that, according to data, negatively affect students of a certain race or nationality. The action, without offering any opportunity for public comment, aligns with the Trump administration’s push to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives from the nation’s schools. Fear of a federal investigation, conservatives argue, can interfere with districts’ ability to manage their schools.

Others argue rescinding the rule decreases the chances all students will receive an equal education.

“This has real-world implications,” said GeDá Jones Herbert, chief legal counsel at Brown’s Promise, a nonprofit that supports efforts to create more integrated schools. Discrimination, she said, isn’t always obvious. “Sometimes we can’t find the fire, and the smoke is enough.” 

A group of former Department of Justice attorneys, who left the administration in part because of its education policies, criticized the move. 

“We ensured children could attend accessible and integrated schools while protecting them from abuse at the hands of police or the juvenile justice system,” they wrote in . “We left because this administration turned the division’s core mission upside down, largely abandoning its duty to protect civil rights.”

The shift in policy comes as the Education Department calls back over 250 civil rights staff, who have been on administrative leave, to handle a mounting backlog of cases. A January , issued before Trump took office, showed that the volume of complaints continues to increase year over year.

‘Ideological weapon’ 

This week’s announcement applies only to the Justice Department, but other agencies, , plan to follow Bondi’s lead. Signaling its intentions, the Education Department has already an agreement, reached during the Biden administration, requiring the Rapid City schools in South Dakota to address discipline disparities.

An Office for Civil Rights found that Native American students in the district were twice as likely as white students to face discipline referrals during the 2021-22 school year and almost five times more likely to be suspended. The district was expected to hire staff to focus on equity in discipline, revise its policies and create a committee that included a member of the Native American community.

Rick Hess, the director of education policy studies at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, called the administration’s new policy a “necessary corrective.”

“The Obama and Biden administrations turned disparate impact into an ideological weapon,” he said.

In 2014, the Obama administration that said schools in which Black and Hispanic students were disproportionately suspended or expelled could be in violation of Title VI — even when those students misbehaved at higher rates. The document warned that even if a policy was “administered in an evenhanded manner,” it could have a “disparate impact.”

Michael Petrilli, president of the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute, that the guidance, and less-punitive “restorative” approaches to addressing misbehavior, kept districts from removing disruptive and violent students and robbed other minority students of the chance to learn. 

During the first Trump administration, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos rescinded the document, calling it an example of federal overreach. Under Secretary Miguel Cardona, the department indicated that it would reissue guidance related to discipline disparities, but officials held off. Experts speculated that it would be a politically risky move and that the pandemic had exacerbated behavior issues.

But the absence of explicit guidance didn’t hinder the Biden administration from investigating districts for disproportionality. Last September, Kentucky’s Jefferson County district entered into with the Department of Justice to address racial disparities in discipline. An investigation showed that Black students were disciplined at higher rates and faced harsher consequences than white students for the same offenses.

Joshua Dunn, executive director of the Institute of American Civics at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, said that according to Bondi’s interpretation, the Obama-era discipline guidance did not comply with the law.��

“Students who suffer the most from disparate impact disciplinary policies are minority students who have their education sabotaged by a few troublemakers who are kept in the classroom,” he said. Those are the students, he said, who will be “the most significant beneficiaries of this change.”

Bondi wrote that the administration tried to find a compromise by requiring schools, for example, to “remedy unintentional discrimination.” 

“But any version of imposing liability for unintentional discrimination is inconsistent with Title VI’s original public meaning,” Bondi wrote. “Regardless, even a modified version of disparate-impact liability would not eliminate the department’s serious legal and policy concerns.”

was originally reported by Ebony JJ Curry of . .

Seventy years have passed since Rosa Parks refused to surrender her seat on a Montgomery bus, and yet the country still tries to shrink her into that single moment — a tired seamstress who’d simply had enough.

Detroit, the city where she chose to continue her life, insists on remembering her differently. Not as an icon frozen in time, but as a Black woman whose lifelong organizing stretched from sexual violence cases in rural Alabama to open housing fights on Detroit’s west side.

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That fuller story�� — truth beyond the myth — is exactly what the Rosa Parks Scholarship Foundation has fought to tell for 45 years.

The Rosa Parks Scholarship Foundation (RPSF) has awarded more than $3 million in scholarships to more than 2,250 high school seniors since its founding by The Detroit News and the Detroit Public Schools (DPS) in 1980.

“Most people actually don’t know the story of Rosa Parks,” said Dr. Danielle McGuire, RPSF board member, historian and author of “At the Dark End of the Street”, whose research permanently shifted how historians write about Parks and the civil rights movement. “She’s so much more interesting, so much more radical, and so much more involved in all kinds of things that we forget about. We keep her stuck on the bus in Montgomery in 1955.”

According to Kim Trent, a�� Detroit civic leader and former board president, the foundation, created through a racial discrimination lawsuit settlement involving Stroh’s Brewing Company, became one of the rare instances where federal accountability for racism produced long-term investment in Black futures.

A judge, DPS and The Detroit News agreed the money should honor Parks — who was living in Detroit and working for Rep. John Conyers at the time — by funding scholarships for Michigan students devoted to service and social change.

It is a statewide program, reaching students from Detroit to Grand Rapids to rural school districts where scholarship dollars often determine whether higher education is possible at all.

That framing makes her legacy active, not ceremonial.

“As part of her family, I feel grateful to be able to work together with my fellow board members to keep fighting for more opportunities to continue to provide scholarships,” said Erica Thedford, Parks’ great-niece and a foundation trustee. “I think Auntie Rosa would be extremely proud of what the Foundation has been able to achieve.”

The numbers tell one story — more than 1,000 scholars, millions awarded, forty $2,500 scholarships each year — and the essays tell another. Applicants must identify a modern social issue and explain how they would confront it using principles Parks embodied: discipline, non-negotiable dignity, community before self.

“Reading the essays of the students who apply is a great reminder that each person doing one act, no matter how small, creates a stronger network of love and kindness,” Thedford said. “Some of these students come from extreme hardship and still find the time and resources to volunteer at food banks, shelters… Some even take it upon themselves to be the organizer of ways to help the less fortunate at their schools.”

The award is one-time, not renewable, yet its impact stretches across decades.

“Once you become a Rosa Parks Scholarship Foundation recipient, you are a Rosa Parks Scholar for life,” Thedford said. “These students are now part of a network of people who root for each other, and that kind of support system is important.”

Trent knows that firsthand: She was a Parks Scholar herself when she graduated from Cass Tech High School.

“I received the scholarship in 1987,” she said. “Ironically, not only did I get it, but my best friend… also received the same scholarship. And then her son got the scholarship like 30 years later.”

Trent said the scholarship’s origin mirrors Parks’ life — created in response to injustice and sustained through community action.

“It’s one of those rare occasions where something beautiful grew out of an instance of racism and oppression,” Trent said.

Over the years, some Parks Scholars attended community college. Others enrolled at flagship universities. All had to articulate how their education would serve a community beyond themselves.

Some, like Emmy-winning actor Courtney B. Vance, who’s from Highland Park, Michigan, went on to shape national culture. Others are now attorneys, educators and nonprofit leaders across the state.

“What gets lost in what she did is the reason she did it,” Trent added. “It wasn’t just so she could sit on a bus. It was because she was trying to open up opportunity for people who had been denied opportunity.”

That is the heartbeat of the foundation’s lineage.

Parks was not simply resisting segregation. She was rejecting the entire machinery that kept Black women from safety, education and economic autonomy.

McGuire’s research highlights how Rosa Parks was investigating sexual violence cases long before #MeToo, defending Black girls whose voices were dismissed in courtrooms and newspapers. She worked alongside the NAACP on equity cases. When she left Alabama under threat of death and moved to Detroit, she became the neighbor who knew everyone’s children, the church member who attended every meeting, the woman who collected information and names and needs.

“She was the person in the neighborhood who knew all the kids, who worked in almost every community organization you can imagine, to make life better for her people,” McGuire said. “The scholarship foundation is an example of that — just one of many.”

Every year, nearly 400 applicants encounter that fuller history — the Parks who fought for open housing in Detroit, who believed in Black self-determination, who, as McGuire notes, “never stopped fighting for equality and justice for people who didn’t have a voice that was being heard.”

That is not accidental. It is by design.

“We ask our applicants to become familiar with Rosa Parks and the tactics and strategies she used to make changes in her community and how they will do the same,” McGuire said. “I think it gives them hope. It links them to a tradition and a history of hope and change.”

This anniversary of Parks’ arrest arrives as school boards strip Black history from K-12 classrooms and as scholarship programs for marginalized students come under attack. Thedford sees the foundation’s work as a refusal.

“During this time, when we are hearing of funding being pulled from schools and programs that are needed to serve our youth, the Foundation is able to continue its provision of funds,” she said.

McGuire is blunt about what that represents:

“No matter how hard people try to cancel the past, the past is very much alive,” she said. “Rosa Parks’ history gives us so much honesty about America… and studying her is paramount to getting through any difficult time.”

Seventy years later, the lesson remains unchanged: Rosa Parks did not fight for a place to sit, she fought for the generations who would rise. Today, those students are still applying, still studying her strategies, still refusing to yield.

This was originally published on .

Advocates say the reduction in staff has contributed to a backlog of untouched complaints, leading students to wonder whether their cases have been abandoned.

“The people who turn to OCR are the students who feel really betrayed by their own institutions or by their own school districts and often feel like they’re at the end of the road,” said Amanda Walsh, deputy director of external affairs for the Victim Rights Law Center, a legal advocacy group that’s part the case. The Boston OCR office, one of seven shuttered in the downsizing, was handling complaints from the victims of sexual assault they represent. Now, Walsh said, they have no information on the status of those cases. “We’ve proactively reached out to OCR for updates and have received no responses.”  

The administration says that because the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the secretary to permanently fire over 1,000 staffers from other divisions in the agency, she should be free to dismiss OCR employees as well. 

The two cases are “functionally identical,” the government’s lawyers wrote in a to the court. They said that the district court should throw out the June 18 order requiring McMahon to reinstate OCR’s attorneys, investigators and other support staff.

Attorneys for the Victim Rights Law Center and the two families who sued say their case is significantly different. Their clients — and those in similar situations nationwide — have pending complaints that have been left in limbo or dismissed because of the staff reduction. 

One Black student in the suit, identified as T.R., from peers in the Falls City, Nebraska, district. They called him a “monkey” and the n-word. A.J. from Birmingham, Michigan, another plaintiff, has a life-threatening dairy allergy. Students poured milk on his lunch and put cheese on his head. Tara Blunt, T.R.’s mother, withdrew him from school in 2023. A.J.’s mother, Karen Josefosky, pulled her son out the following year. 

Firing OCR staff “stalled civil rights investigations across the country and left thousands of students, including plaintiffs, without recourse for discrimination in school,” attorneys for the plaintiffs wrote in last week opposing the administration’s request.��

The delay in putting OCR staff back to work is just one example of the Trump administration’s failure to comply with about a third of the court orders issued against it, according to a recent of 337 lawsuits.

Rachel Oglesby, chief of staff at the Education Department, files weekly updates to Judge , with the Massachusetts district court, about the department’s progress toward reinstating the staff. But her statements list multiple reasons why the department has not acceded to the court’s wishes. Officials, she wrote, are still calculating whether there’s sufficient office space and discussing “the feasibility” of restoring employees’ access to computer systems. In the meantime, the department is paying the staff about $1 million a week while they’re out of work, she said.��

One OCR attorney still on the job said the layoffs have made it nearly impossible to address all of the complaints submitted. 

“One person now has to do the work of three,” said the attorney, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation. “There’s just not enough physical time in the day.”

Joun didn’t give the department a hard deadline for staff to return to work. He just said McMahon had to “take all steps necessary to facilitate the return to duty” of those terminated and continue to investigate all complaints. 

That choice of words allows the agency to appear to be meeting the court’s terms, said David Super, a constitutional law professor at Georgetown University.

“When you use language like ‘facilitate the return,’ … you certainly invite the administration to drag its feet,” he said. “After a week or two, if nothing meaningful is happening, that’s probably the time to consider whether clearer language is needed.”

The department’s slow progress in getting OCR staff back to work is similar to the strategy it followed in the Supreme Court case brought by blue states and a group of districts and unions. 

On May 22, Joun, the Biden appointee presiding over both cases, temporarily halted the department from firing staff. The U.S. Appeals Court for the First Circuit upheld the ruling two weeks later. The department appealed, asking the Supreme Court to allow the firings to go forward while the case continues in Joun’s court. 

The never returned to work. Aug. 1 was their official last day.

With an administration unafraid to defy the courts, some legal experts question why judges haven’t used stronger measures to force compliance. District courts can hold government officials in contempt and enforce penalties, sanctions and even jail time. In 2019, a former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos $100,000 because she wouldn’t stop collecting loan payments from students defrauded by a for-profit college that went out of business. 

In the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, a held Department of the Interior officials in contempt for not paying Native Americans past royalties on oil, timber and other resources. This year, a District of Columbia circuit court judge to hold Trump in contempt for not returning deportees sent to El Salvador back to the U.S. In July, the men were , their home country.  

But appellate courts rarely uphold lower-court sanctions against administration officials, Nicholas Parrillo, a Yale University law professor, . On Friday, the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals against Trump. 

Georgetown’s Super noted that the current Supreme Court, which has backed much of Trump’s agenda, has discouraged district judges from coming down hard on the administration.

The justices have “fired several shots across the lower courts’ bows, suggesting that they should be less forceful in enforcing their orders,” he said. “They haven’t made a single sweeping statement; they’ve just nitpicked the cases that have come to them.”

Despite noncompliance, federal agencies traditionally try to keep the courts happy by demonstrating “some steady progress,” Parrillo wrote. 

In her filed Tuesday, Oglesby said a committee met the day before to discuss “reintegration activities.” Officials mailed 365 boxes to employees to return their old laptops before the department issues them updated equipment.��

On , she said there’s available space for employees in the Dallas regional office. But there’s not enough room in Boston, Philadelphia and San Francisco. She’s not sure about Chicago; the New York office is under renovation. 

Oglesby’s rationale doesn’t satisfy Terri Gonzales, a chief attorney who managed the Dallas office. She doesn’t understand why the department didn’t allow the staff to start working from home weeks ago.

“For approximately a full year during the COVID-19 pandemic, almost the entire staff of the OCR Dallas office worked remotely,” she wrote in . “There is no reason why staff members could not do the same now.”

The department, she added, could have taken “common sense” measures to get the ball rolling, like providing staff with contact information for new supervisors and training them on any new procedures enacted while they’ve been on leave. 

The department did not respond to questions about why OCR staff aren’t working remotely. 

‘Cause for grave concern’

OCR is still under the leadership of Craig Trainor, who worked for the America First Policy Institute, the MAGA think tank McMahon chaired, until Trump appointed him acting assistant secretary. He’s awaiting confirmation for a post in the Department of Housing and Urban Development. But like Kimberly Richey, Trump’s choice to lead OCR, Trainor’s nomination is stalled while Congress takes an August break.

Trump last week pressured the Senate to advance dozens of his nominees, but a deal with Democrats before the recess. 

Under Trainor, OCR has received nearly 6,500 complaints since the March mass layoffs and dismissed about 4,500 of them, Oglesby wrote. The office resolved 385 complaints and opened 377 investigations. They include one involving the in California requiring officials to clarify that service dogs are allowed at school. Another focuses on ensuring a , student with ADHD receives extra time on tests and other accommodations spelled out in his disability plan. 

In a third example, the Detroit district to fix an elevator at one of its elementary schools and ensure that no students, parents or staff with disabilities miss out on programs or services that require use of the elevator.

An investigation into complaints over services for students with disabilities in the District of Columbia Public Schools is “actively being investigated,” added the current OCR attorney who asked not to be named.

In the past, the staff would have cleared about 200 complaints a month, Gonzales wrote.

“The low reported number of substantive resolutions contrasted with the high number of dismissals is a cause for grave concern,” she told the court. “Based on my experience, it suggests that OCR is not completing investigations promptly and fairly.”

Beyond promoting equal opportunity in academics, sports, and extracurricular activities, Title IX is designed to uphold protections for those who experience sexual harassment and assault. However, the return to Trump’s 2020 Title IX rule is a significant setback in progress and will put these students at much higher risk.

Now, survivors will again face difficult barriers coming forward because of burdensome standards of proof and a limited scope of what constitutes sexual harassment and assault. Schools will also have less authority to conduct thorough and prompt investigations of complaints, leaving survivors with fewer options and less support, further discouraging reporting and perpetuating a culture of silence on campuses. 

Compounding these concerns, the U.S. Department of Energy has recently to roll back certain Title IX regulations aimed at combating sex discrimination in education programs and sports. This move includes rescinding rules that encourage educational institutions to address gender disparities, particularly in STEM fields, where women remain underrepresented. 

Simply put, Trump’s second term has moved beyond a repeat of his 2020 changes. The radical act of dismantling the Education Department, or stripping its Office of Civil Rights, would endanger the remaining scope of Title IX by making it harder to hold educational institutions accountable for fostering environments where women can learn and thrive free from discrimination or violence.

Without federal oversight, schools’ compliance with Title IX would go unmonitored, resulting in a system in which institutions may be allowed or emboldened to violate the law. Alone, many state and local education agencies lack the resources, expertise, or political will to adequately enforce Title IX’s protections. Women and girls would see the loss of critical resources designed to combat discrimination and violence, while also encountering barriers to full participation in sports and extracurricular activities. 

The administration’s cuts and policy shifts deliberately affect women and other students from marginalized groups, including LGBTQ students and those from ethnic and racial minorities, who also rely on the protections afforded by Title IX to ensure access to a fair and equal education. 

Beyond reverting to outdated, harmful regulations, the administration has sent a message that addressing gender discrimination and violence is no longer a priority for our country’s educational system. In a time when gender-based violence is a pervasive issue, dismantling the safeguards that were designed to protect students is not just short-sighted, it is dangerous.

Without institutional accountability for addressing sexual harassment, assault, and discrimination, survivors may experience long-term trauma, academic setbacks, or even drop out — disrupting educational and career trajectories. 

Likewise, the Department of Energy’s proposed changes would not only weaken the foundation for equal participation in federally funded programs but also signal a broader federal retreat from enforcing civil rights in education. These rollbacks bypass traditional public notice and comment periods, raising questions about their legality and transparency. 

The consequences are stark: fewer opportunities for women and marginalized groups in education and athletics, and a diminished federal commitment to combating sex discrimination in areas critical to career development and economic equality.

Discrimination in education frequently leads to fewer opportunities to pursue high-paying jobs, deepening gender and racial wage gaps over time. Furthermore, when these behaviors are accepted in schools, they can carry over into professional settings, perpetuating harmful work environments.

The path forward requires reinstating and strengthening the protections enshrined in Title IX, particularly to recenter survivors. We also need a DOE that ensures schools not only comply with the law, but also emphasize justice, fairness, and support.

That includes examining the intellectual and cultural foundations of the holiday: the people, places and events that often get overlooked or erased in social studies curriculums.

Juneteenth, the federal holiday in American history, holds special significance for many educators as it was championed by one of their own. , a former teacher — well into her nineties — led the charge for national recognition. While many schools across the country are off on June 19 in observance, the reason why is not as often taught, says Knowles.

Knowles, CEO and founder of the educational consulting firm Teach Heal Build, focuses on creating culturally affirming classrooms and communities. In April, he published the latest installment in the BOLDLY BLACK workbook series “Mathematics and Science in Ancient Africa.” The set was designed for third graders to explore topical principles and practices tied to Black culture — offering lessons they may not encounter in a traditional school setting.

Ahead of this year’s Juneteenth holiday, ����Ӱ��’s Trinity Alicia spoke with Knowles about what’s shifting in social studies instruction — particularly in Florida, the power of culturally responsive curriculums in today’s political climate and what motivates him in today’s sociopolitical climate.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

����Ӱ��: This year marks the 160th anniversary of Juneteenth, but it’s only been recognized as a federal holiday since 2021. Why is it so important, from an educator’s perspective, that Juneteenth became a national holiday?  

Juneteenth allows both teachers and students to explore some of the deeper, more despondent areas of American history that are often avoided. It helps us step outside traditional narratives and unpack the multiple perspectives and experiences that different people, particularly within the African-American and African diaspora communities, have had throughout American history. In this way, it gives students a chance to better understand the ongoing process of freedom.   

For example, Juneteenth is often seen as the definitive end of slavery, but that’s an oversimplification. In reality, it represents a moment in a much longer and more complex journey toward emancipation. This perspective encourages both teachers and students to engage with history in a more nuanced and meaningful way. 

It was also, for almost as many years, largely left untaught in schools. What impact does that have on America’s students and our society as a whole?  

Having been in education for almost two decades, I’ve seen that when we don’t talk about important historical events — like those highlighted and signified by Juneteenth — we miss the opportunity to open up meaningful conversations in the classroom.   

I’ve witnessed how this silence can lead to the creation of a generation of students who are apathetic, especially when it comes to social justice and socio-economic issues that disproportionately impact marginalized communities. However, when we engage with authentic stories and histories, it gives students the chance to develop empathy, compassion and a broader understanding of others’ experiences. This helps create more open-minded individuals who are better equipped to contribute positively to the diverse society we live in today. 

An educator named Opal Lee, known to be “the grandmother of Juneteenth” was a key advocate for the national recognition of the holiday. What significance does this hold for you knowing a fellow teacher led that charge?

Within the framework of American capitalism, we often fail to give educators the honor, respect and homage they truly deserve. Educators are the ones who mold the minds of our children — they have the power and potential to shape not only students’ academic paths but also their overall life trajectories. When educators are empowered to lead conversations about topics like Juneteenth — and when we recognize that the push to make Juneteenth a national holiday was led by an educator — it highlights the strength and influence we possess as a profession.   

It shows that our impact extends far beyond the walls of the classroom and can resonate throughout society as a whole. We have the ability to unlock the minds of the next generation and to use our knowledge, especially historical knowledge, as a powerful tool for change. By doing so, we not only inspire other educators but also challenge our country to examine all aspects of its past — even the ones that don’t neatly fit the traditional narrative of American history.  

Ilyasah Shabazz, daughter of human and civil rights activist Malcolm X, over 10 years ago on Juneteenth, “We’re in denial of the African holocaust.” Malcolm X would’ve been 100 years old last month, and we’re also 60 years from his assassination. On this Juneteenth, what do you want students to remember most about Malcolm X that they might not get from learning about other civil rights activists?  

As we celebrate Juneteenth this year, we must also reflect on civil rights activists beyond the immediate historical context of the holiday — especially when you think about figures like Malcolm X, who are usually misunderstood. His ideals and philosophy were labeled radical when taking a look at what he’s done overall for American history and the Black community in terms of uncovering darker truths as well as the denial of the American government and the experiences of African-Americans.

We live in a landscape right now and we’re told to move on and forget about those things we’re literally still dealing with as a community, but Malcolm X would want us to continue to advocate for our people and our students to be able to share our authentic experiences. And some of those experiences weren’t happy and joyous. But they have perpetrated so much psychological violence, which continues to happen in the classroom. And it was Malcolm X who stated that “only a fool would allow his oppressors to educate his children.”  

What Juneteenth does within Black communities forces us to step up based on the sentiments that Malcolm X expressed within that quote to be able to affirm and be able to become more self-reliant when it comes to our economic issues and social issues. But when it comes to educational issues and being more responsible and more accountable for teaching our history, we’re no longer contingent on systems to be able to teach the truth and history in the United States. 

From the bans on AP African American History courses to the pushback against DEI policies in schools nationwide, how have you navigated this climate as an educator in Florida?

Florida is one of the most prominent hotspots for controversy in education and arguably an epicenter of these debates. We’ve seen significant pushback against inclusive and truthful historical narratives, and it forces educators in schools to sanitize history and continue to perpetuate a fairytale traditional narrative of American history. This sort of censorship disproportionately impacts social studies instruction, which creates a sense of frustration and a disconnect, which leads to a disengagement with students.   

Throughout my work in public education, I have continued to push back and resist by looking at some of our state standards and benchmarks when it comes specifically to social studies and ensuring that I can tie in our stories and tie in those things that people label “controversial” or “political.” I have weaponized the language itself and weaponized some of the state standards so we can continue to tell our stories unredacted. 

Why is it important that Black parents, teachers and administrators are well represented in the decision-making process for schools?

One of the aspects of American history I don’t think that we unpack enough as a community is just some of the deleterious impacts that integration had within the Black community. A lot of the institutions, specifically the educational institution after integration, was absorbed by the dominant, more prevalent society. 

It is important, even within the current state of the system we’re in, that our voices are heard, our perspectives are heard especially when it comes to policies, processes, practices and procedures in education. Those who live in the community can have better, more viable solutions to some of the issues that we contend with within a community. I’ve seen processes within education when people outside of our community are making decisions, and those decisions are not necessarily meeting or accommodating the needs of the community. 

It is beyond critical that Black educators and educational leaders are given space to represent the issues and also the authentic, lived experiences and even some of the cultural norms that exist within those communities so they can be in a position to represent and also advocate for the things that are needed within the Black community.

In your years as an educator and advocate, what surprises you the most about trends and interests among Black students now versus when you were a kid in America? Do Black students and educators come into school — and specifically social studies classes — thinking, “What’s the point?”

Many children, especially those who are informed, are becoming activists around current events tied to identity. Students who are becoming outspoken, specifically a lot of our student-led organizations such as like Black Student Unions, for example, are able to take charge against the racism and bigotry here in Florida and amplify their voices around some of the injustice that is taking place in curriculum, which essentially violates our First Amendment.

You just a new workbook for students, “BOLDLY BLACK: Science and Mathematics in Ancient Africa.” What do you hope to achieve by releasing this series?

Information is widely more available than it was during my high school era in the 1990s simply due to the digital age we live in today. Sometimes we look at technology as being a destructive force, but it influences me to maintain a working knowledge of it in order to effectively show students how to access the information that we couldn’t when we were their ages.

Part of my activism and my solution-based approaches to things we’re dealing with within the Black community, specifically regarding American history that focuses on our experiences, is creating [this] Afro-centric workbook series that is geared towards students from grades three through 12. My third grade title is “Mathematics and Science in Ancient Africa,” and my goal is creating a curriculum that is concise and also digestible within the hands of parents and also community members.

In states where legislation is trying to restrict what we can say and do within the classroom, communities — and specifically Black communities — need to start building their own infrastructures and using some of the space within the Black communities. For example, community centers and also churches are safe, liberating spaces that can be found in Black communities that teach our history. 

Community members and those who may not be experts in pedagogy and pedagogical approaches can pick this up and share this information with their children. Some of those gaps and things that may be missing within the public educational system are now within the hands of the community to be able to educate and affirm all our children.

Thinking about classrooms and curriculums across the country — what keeps you up at night, and what are you most hopeful for?

In this current climate, I have such hope and optimism. I understand that Black communities have gone through far worse. Our whole experience within just the United States even before it became the United States and colonial America has been turmoil. 

But us as Black people have had agency and power to resist the oppression and repression of our voices and our experiences as well as our humanity in this country in the most profound ways. We’ve found ways to resist, push back and also provide for ourselves in order to achieve self-sufficiency in many points within our history. 

I feel hopeful moving forward that even if a public educational space is under attack, we will start to create those liberating spaces in solidarity like we’ve done throughout history in order to rebuild those institutions and infrastructures that were either destabilized or lost through integration. 

Considering all of those variables, there is very little pessimism within me around the things that have taken place and very little fear because, as Kendrick Lamar , “we gon’ be alright.”

Students in the Bronx high school that Dylan Lopez Contreras attended before he was arrested by immigration agents last month have sent hundreds of letters in recent weeks to the Western Pennsylvania detention center where he is being held.

Written in a third-period elective class set aside for this purpose, staff made sure to send the missives individually, rather than in a single pile, hoping Contreras would enjoy their support over time . 

Contreras, 20, didn’t always have time for school — working to help support his family would often pull him away, one of his teachers told ����Ӱ�� — but he left his mark on the ELLIS Prep campus. He was the one who introduced a fun new tradition, one that continues in his absence, maybe even in his honor: He got the kids to play Uno in their downtime. 

His teacher could hear their laughter over the game in the hallway. So when it came time to send Contreras a supportive note, telling him to stay strong during a dark time, one of them slipped an Uno card inside the envelope. 

“I’m going to give him a +4,” the student told his teacher, referring to a card used to delay or prevent an opponent’s victory. “That would make him laugh.”

Contreras’ May 21 arrest by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents — and that of a Massachusetts high school junior who was picked up by ICE 10 days later — have intensified anxiety among educators who serve immigrant students. They say their early fears about President Trump’s return to power are now playing out. 

an 11th grader at Grover Cleveland High School in Queens, was detained June 4 after a routine immigration hearing, Public Schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles Ramos confirmed Saturday. The teen’s name has not been released.

“They are in incredible pain right now,” Queens state Assemblywoman Claire Valdez told about the family. “They are terrified for their son. They are terrified for the rest of their family. I don’t think that you have to be a parent to put yourself in their shoes and to imagine someone that you love more than life itself being taken away in this incredibly, incredibly cruel way.”

And while these students engage in separate legal battles, CNN reported last week that some 500 children who arrived in the United States as unaccompanied minors have been taken into federal custody by agents following “welfare checks” that many advocates say are wreaking havoc. Families say the children have been increasingly difficult to find and extract from government “care.”����

The efforts targeting children — some — may be the result of increased pressure from a reportedly furious White House deputy chief of staff to boost the number of immigration-related arrests to 3,000 per day. 

Adam Strom, executive director of Re-Imagining Migration, said some school districts have been preparing for this escalation — creating rapid response teams and family support networks that activate when immigration enforcement occurs — but others are shocked at what they’re witnessing.

“For other communities, this is a wake-up call … the unimaginable is happening in communities like their own, to students not so different from the kids in their own classrooms,” Strom said. 

After much protest, 18-year-old Massachusetts teen Marcelo Gomes da Silva was granted bond and from custody Thursday. He said he had , had crackers for lunch and dinner, slept on a concrete floor with a metallic blanket and had to use the bathroom in front of 40 other men. 

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey said he should never have been taken into custody by ICE agents, who later admitted they were looking for his father.

“While ICE officers never intended to apprehend Gomes-DaSilva, he was found to be in the United States illegally and subject to removal proceedings, so officers made the arrest,” homeland security officials said in a . 

The New York and Massachusetts cases come amid others. An 18-year-old student from Colombia living in Detroit, was as he was driving friends to join their high school field trip. Federal officials said he already had a removal order from a judge. 

In another case, a was held in an ICE detention facility for weeks after she was arrested by local police in early May on traffic charges that were later dismissed. 

As the cop told Ximena Arias Cristobal he was taking her to jail, she replied shakily that she couldn’t go because she had finals the next week and her family “really depends on this.” Released on bond May 22, the young woman is now facing deportation to Mexico, a country she left when she was 4.

Far younger children — including toddlers — have been defending themselves in immigration court for years. And the many organizations that have helped them through the system are now under attack. Some have been issued — Trump ceased funding for their legal representation — leaving them in further jeopardy. 

4-Year-Old Immigrant and Other Young Kids Go to Court Alone

Nancy Duchesneau, a senior pre-K-to-12 research manager at the advocacy organization EdTrust, said it’s too early to tell if the country’s most recent immigration enforcement campaign — manifested in raids and surprise detentions after court appearances — has led to a drop in school attendance .

Duchesneau noted that ICE’s aggressive tactics disrupt learning and cause harm to a wide swath of students, not just immigrants or those with foreign-born parents.  

“When we see trauma happen to other kids, or to other people, we still have emotional impacts from that,” she said. “Seeing your friends taken away — kids that you know — even if you are an American citizen, we don’t know what else could happen.”

Like Strom, she said schools should make sure there are clear policies in place for when ICE agents visit campus and that both students and staff know their rights.

Eric Marquez, one of Dylan’s teachers at ELLIS Preparatory Academy, said he taught Contreras for weeks last fall before the young man, who worked , started regularly missing school. 

“If he had a chance to work, he worked,” Marquez said. 

His teachers understand that struggle. ELLIS Prep is a small specialized school that serves older newcomer students with limited English, nearly all of whom had arrived in the country just weeks or months before their admission. Many are behind on their credits and some have massive gaps in their education. Despite these challenges, Marquez said many go on to college. 

����Ӱ�� published a 16-month-long undercover investigation last year into how schools respond to enrollment requests from students like Contreras. The fictional teen in ����Ӱ��’s Unwelcome to America project, “Hector Guerrero,” was also Venezuelan. But unlike Contreras, Hector, 19, was refused admission to more than 200 high schools across the U.S. where he had a legal right to attend based on his age.

At the time of our reporting, Donald Trump, then a leading presidential contender, was once again vilifying immigrants on the campaign trail, a winning tactic for a man who rode a similar wave of xenophobia into office in 2016. 

Worry was beginning to build over how far he might go as president to deport undocumented children and families. 

Now five months into Trump’s second term, Marquez remembers the moment he learned his student had been arrested and was living out that fear.

“For me, it was soul-crushing,” the teacher said. “It hit everyone. It was symbolic in a way. He was that over-age, under-credited student with a limited, interrupted formal education. But he was super smart. He totally can go to college. He really can.”

The mass layoffs, part of Trump’s plan to eliminate the Education Department, fell particularly hard on the civil rights office, which lost more than half its staff and currently has a backlog of more than 25,000 discrimination cases. Despite that, Ritchey said she is “always going to advocate” for the office to have “the resources and tools it needs to do its job,” while at the same time calling out only those types of cases prioritized by the administration.  

“If I am confirmed, the department will not stand idly by while Jewish students are attacked and discriminated against,” Richey said. “We will stop forcing schools to let boys and men into female sports and spaces,” she continued, referring to inclusive school policies that allow transgender students to participate in school athletics and use restroom facilities that align with their gender identities.  

Richey led the civil rights office on an interim basis during Trump’s first term amid COVID’s widespread disruptions and she also worked for the office under President George. W. Bush.  She is to deny civil rights protections to transgender youth, promote school choice and parental rights, crack down on curriculum that focuses on racism, and weed out diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. 

During Thursday’s hearing, lawmakers put particular emphasis on Richey’s record involving LGBTQ+ youth, with Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin pointing to where more than half of these students reported experiencing discrimination at school.

“These kids are in dire need of protection against discrimination,” Baldwin said. “If confirmed, I hope you will act in the best interest of all children.”

Meanwhile, Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville, a retired college football coach from Alabama, described permitting transgender students to compete in school sports as “a huge problem” and dangerous. 

Richey, a former basketball player, said she would have had to sit out had transgender students been allowed to participate in school sports when she was a student.  

“I could not have competed against biological men, it’s just not something that I would have been able to do,” she said. 

The Trump administration maintains that policies allowing transgender students to participate in school sports “actually violated Title IX because they deprive women and girls of the opportunity to participate in athletics.” 

“I’m very proud of the way the secretary and the president have prioritized this issue, and I’m certainly committed to vigorously enforcing it and continuing to pursue these cases,” Richey said. 

Richey’s interim stint leading the civil rights office included the Trump administration’s response to a 2020 U.S. Supreme Court decision extending anti-discrimination protections to LGBTQ+ employees in the workplace. The administration the ruling did not apply to schools under Title IX, the federal law prohibiting gender discrimination. 

The Biden administration then based much of its rewrite of Title IX regulations around that same Supreme Court decision, instructing schools to allow transgender students to use restrooms and pronouns that match their gender identity. The rule, no longer in effect, sparked lawsuits from red states and hard-right parent groups like Moms for Liberty.  

Special education cases personal

In 2021, near the end of her interim leadership, Richey into allegations that the state of Indiana and three districts — Fairfax County, Virginia, Los Angeles and Seattle — failed  to provide special education services during the COVID school shutdowns. Both the Los Angeles and Fairfax probes resulted in agreements to make up for missed services. 

Richey said her commitment to protecting the civil rights of children with disabilities reflects her own learning experiences. She was diagnosed with a brian tumor nearly 20 years ago, she explained, and relied on federal protections to access educational programs. 

“I know firsthand the importance and the significance of our civil rights laws and there’s no greater work than leading an agency responsible for ensuring that students get the services they need,” Richey said. 

Whether the Education Department will be capable of fulfilling that mission is now being fought over in court. On Tuesday, an appeals court to lift an injunction stopping it from further dismantling the department and ordering it to reinstate more than a thousand Education Department employees who lost their jobs. The administration has said it will appeal to the Supreme Court.��

Earlier this year, the nonprofit National Center for Youth Law filed a separate lawsuit against the Education Department, alleging specific staff reductions at the civil rights office rendered it incapable of carrying out civil rights enforcement efforts mandated by Congress, with particular harm to students of color, female students and LGBTQ+ youth.

Johnathan Smith, the center’s chief of staff and general counsel, dismissed any assertion that the administration was interested in protecting students’ civil rights. 

“Nothing about this confirmation changes the fact that this administration has consistently gutted OCR by laying off staff, by closing regional offices and by sending the message that discrimination just simply isn’t a priority for them and their work,” he told ����Ӱ�� this week.

Combating antisemitism to remain a top focus

Richey’s appointment has largely been embraced by conservative groups like the American Enterprise Institute. In , the think tank lauded the nominee for her role in “ambitious reform efforts” in Virginia and Florida, and urged her to end the “Biden-Harris team’s unconscionable ‘catch and release’ approach to antisemitism, where some of the worst offenses in decades were treated with indifference.” 

On Wednesday, the Office for Civil Rights that the institution violated federal anti-discrimination laws and had “acted with deliberate indifference towards the harassment of Jewish students.” Also on Wednesday, the Trump administration from entering the country to attend Harvard University as the administration cracks down on the institution over its response to protests during the 2023-24 school year over the Israel-Gaza war. 

Richey said Thursday that antisemitism has intensified at U.S. institutions in recent years and the civil rights office will continue to prioritize efforts to combat it. 

Meanwhile, Democrats accused the Trump administration during Thursday’s hearing of opening a slew of civil rights cases — including allegations of antisemitism on university campuses — primarily motivated by politics. 

The administration has also sought to revoke the visas and deport international students for their , their and expressing opinions in their . 

Sen. Ed Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts, asked Richey if she would object to actions that “do not afford due process” to students and charged the Trump administration with “treating American freedom and dissent as the enemy.” 

“Do you endorse ripping funding from researchers and students, stealing educational opportunity from international students, abducting students from campuses for asserting their First Amendment rights and continuing to threaten colleges and universities that refuse to comply with lawless demands?” Markey asked. 

In response, Richey stated simply she would “commit to following OCR’s regulations and OCR’s case processing manual.”  

The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions is expected to vote in the coming weeks on Richey’s nomination before it moves to the full Senate for confirmation. 

The federal departments of Education and Justice are investigating whether changes to the admissions policy at a prestigious Virginia high school violated the civil rights of Asian American students, even though the .

The investigation comes after the Virginia Attorney General’s Office said its own investigation found “reasonable cause” to believe bias against Asian American students motivated the changes at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia, and referred the case to federal authorities.

Under President Donald Trump, the Education Department has warned school districts that even race-neutral policies that aim to diversify magnet schools and honors programs , despite court rulings that have repeatedly upheld such policies.

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Many school systems with selective high schools are in the midst of ongoing debate about how students should qualify for those schools.

This is the first civil rights investigation during the second Trump administration to look specifically at high school admissions. Other cases have targeted and as the Trump administration tries to root out common practices associated with diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Fairfax County Public Schools changed the admissions criteria for the school, commonly known as TJ, in 2020 with the goal of creating a more diverse student body.

The 1,800-student school draws from five area school districts and often sends students on to elite colleges and successful careers. In the years before the change, the student body typically was more than two-thirds Asian American. Most students came from just a few middle schools. .

The district dropped the use of standardized test scores, incorporated “experience factors” into the admissions process, and reserved seats for students from each middle school in the area. Parents, many of whom were Asian American, organized as the Coalition for TJ and sued the district over the changes, but the Supreme Court declined to take the case in early 2024. That seemed to be the end of the matter.

But this week Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, a Republican, said a two-year investigation had found evidence that . Miyares said school board members in private communications described the policies as having “an anti asian feel” and that the changes would “kick out Asians.”

After the policy change, Asian American students went from 73% of admitted students to 54%, the attorney general’s office said. The share of white, Black, and Latino students all increased. The study body is currently about 60% Asian American, 20% white, 7% Latino, and 5.5% Black.

The attorney general’s office did not release a full report that would provide more context for board member comments and told Chalkbeat to obtain it from the school district. The school district said it would consider the request but did not immediately share the report. Coalition for TJ also alleged in its lawsuit that the school district was biased against Asian American students, but the court did not find that the policy change violated equal protection requirements.

Miyares referred the case to the federal Justice and Education departments, which announced they would open Title VI investigations into the district. Title VI protects students from discrimination on the basis of race or shared ancestry.

“Thomas Jefferson High School in Fairfax County has long had a reputation for producing some of our nation’s brightest minds, due in no small part to its rigorous admissions process,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement announcing the investigation. “The Fairfax County School Board’s alleged decision to weigh race in TJ’s admissions decisions appears to be both contrary to the law and to the fundamental principle that students should be evaluated on their merit, not the color of their skin.”

A spokesperson for Fairfax County Public Schools said the district was reviewing documents related to the investigation and would have a more detailed response in a few days.

“This matter has already been fully litigated,” the district said. “A federal appellate court determined there was no merit to arguments that the admissions policy for Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology discriminates against any group of students.”

Admissions policy changes are contested ground

Yuyan Chou, a member of Coalition for TJ, that the federal investigation gives parents new hope.

“The Supreme Court decided basically not to hear our case and at that point, I thought the American dream died,” she said. “There’s no path forward, there’s nothing going to happen again until today. I believe there is a chance we can revive that dream.”

Chris Kieser, a senior attorney for the Pacific Legal Foundation, which represented Coalition for TJ and regularly brings lawsuits opposing affirmative action, said he was pleased to see the federal government take another look at the case.

“We certainly think there are grounds to investigate,” he said. Just because the Supreme Court didn’t take up the case “doesn’t mean there were no issues.”

Kieser said the Pacific Legal Foundation continues to hope that the Supreme Court will take up a high school admissions case. Policies that aim to diversify selective high schools often end up discriminating against Asian American students, Kieser said, and the fact that those student continue to gain admittance at high rates under revised policies doesn’t mean they don’t discriminate against individual students.

Derek Black, a law professor at the University of South Carolina, said civil rights investigations can apply a different standard in seeking to protect students than the Supreme Court did in declining to hear the case. But the Education Department’s interpretation of the law appears to be in direct violation of court rulings.

“They have no legal authority to enforce Title VI in a way that is inconsistent with the law,” he said. “If TJ is willing to stand up for itself, it will have to challenge the administration in court. And this is what has been going on all over the country.”

Civil rights investigations often result in negotiated settlements in which school districts agree to make certain changes. The federal government also has the power to withhold federal funds to penalize school districts. Historically that hasn’t happened. But under Trump, the in an effort to get states and school districts to comply with its interpretations of the law.

Black said the department appears to be applying disparate impact theory — a type of legal analysis that looks at whether certain policies affect certain groups in disproportionate ways — to a high school admissions policy just weeks after Trump .

The administration would need a “smoking gun” that showed bias against Asian American students to conclude that the district violated those students’ civil rights, Black said.

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. Sign up for their newsletters at .

Her tenure encompassed President Donald Trump’s first term, a time when staff still addressed the “full range of complaints”  — from racial and gender discrimination to schools denying services to students with disabilities.

But to Simons, the Justice Department’s recent dismissal of a — at a time when continues — is a sign that the current administration has turned its back on students who don’t receive an equal education. It’s why she left the Educational Opportunities Section at the DOJ after 14 years  in April. 

“The administration has been very clear that resources are going to be allocated to certain identified priorities,” she said — primarily keeping trans students out of women’s sports and punishing universities it accuses of tolerating anti-semitism. But that agenda, she said, “is leaving a lot of parents and kids with nowhere to turn.” 

Now she aims to be part of a solution. She’s lending her expertise to a new initiative intended to give families another way to resolve their concerns — the . 

The National Center for Youth Law, a 50-year-old nonprofit, will launch the project on Friday to help families with complaints that the DOJ or the Office for Civil Rights at the Education Department either won’t acknowledge or no longer has the capacity to investigate. Simons will co-chair the fund’s advisory council.

Announced in advance of Saturday’s 71st anniversary of the Brown v. Board decision ending segregation, the effort will include a fellowship program for former OCR attorneys who lost their positions when the Trump administration gutted the agency and closed seven regional offices in March. The goal is to capitalize on the “brain drain” caused by the elimination of nearly 250 OCR staffers and connect families with pro bono attorneys who can conduct investigations and bring lawsuits to resolve their concerns.

“I have zero confidence in [the department’s] ability to administer the system effectively,” said Johnathan Smith, chief of staff and general counsel at the center. “I think most parents who are looking at what’s happening probably would reach the same conclusion.” 

As it shifts attention away from discrimination against LGBTQ students and racial minorities, OCR has left thousands of complaints untouched and dismissed many others. Trump’s 2026 calls for an additional 35% cut to the office as the administration pushes to eliminate the department.

The center, along with parents and special education advocates, over the firings, and asked the District of Columbia federal court to . A hearing is set for May 20. 

Andy Artz was a supervising attorney in OCR’s New York City office until March 11, when the department placed him and hundreds of other department staffers on leave and locked them out of their computer systems. He was in the middle of helping a student who had been denied access to a senior trip because of multiple disabilities and close to reaching a resolution for a victim of sexual assault by a classmate. 

“I found the work really meaningful,” said Artz, who hopes to work with the fund. “OCR was able to do a great job helping school districts and universities understand their obligations.”

To the new administration, however, OCR perpetuated discrimination by focusing on diversity, equity and inclusion and harmed women by extending Title IX protections to transgender students.

“Let me be clear: it is a new day in America,” Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor said when the department announced into a gender-neutral bathroom in Denver schools. “Under President Trump, OCR will not tolerate discrimination of any kind.”

Even if the court blocks the job cuts, it’s unclear whether attorneys would be allowed to return to cases that don’t align with the administration’s priorities. Smith still sees a need for the new project.

His team will work with local NAACP chapters, bar associations and other community organizations to get the word out about the OCR alternative, Smith said.

In addition to seeking attorneys who will represent students pro bono, the fund hopes to attract some of the talent forced to leave the federal government by offering four- to six-month fellowships. Attorneys will receive a $12,500 stipend and non-attorneys will receive $9,000. Depending on funding, Smith expects up to 10 fellows in the first round.��

‘Top-performing personnel’

When Trump was inaugurated, OCR had over 12,000 open cases, . But the database hasn’t been updated since before the new administration took over. According to Julie Hartman, a department spokeswoman, OCR continues to “evaluate all legitimate complaints” and has initiated over 200 disability-related investigations and dozens related to Title IX and anti-discrimination laws. 

“OCR’s staff is composed of top-performing personnel with years of experience enforcing federal civil rights laws who work vigorously to protect all Americans’ civil rights,” she said. 

She declined to comment on the fund specifically, but said the department “welcomes support from — and has often worked with — outside groups who want to advocate for students and families and help those who believe that their civil rights have been violated.”

Factoring in staff reductions and those who left voluntarily, Artz estimates that only about a third of OCR’s staff remains out of the over 560 attorneys, supervisors and other employees who worked there last fall.

As a former deputy assistant attorney general during the Obama administration, Smith doesn’t solely blame Trump for OCR being “terribly backlogged.” 

“It was a system that often was a black hole for families,” he said. “What does it mean to have an Office for Civil Rights that’s actually responsive to families and to young people?”

For Callie Oettinger, a Fairfax County, Virginia, parent and special education advocate, getting OCR to act has yielded mixed results. She has seen complaints linger for years as well as recent steps by the new administration to act on disability cases. 

OCR still hasn’t completed a probe into her 2019 complaint that the Fairfax district denied transportation to students with disabilities who needed extra time to complete the PSAT. At the same time, she’s noticed an uptick in OCR investigations on more recent issues. Since early April, officials have responded to two complaints she’s involved in, one filed in December and another in March.

“It’s not clear why they’re starting where they’re starting,” she said. “Things are definitely moving forward, but they’re not doing themselves a favor by keeping their website so outdated.” 

Others are looking elsewhere for relief. 

In Delaware’s Cape Henlopen School District, Louise Michaud Ngido, an English language teacher, said she’s heard nothing about that schools have failed to provide English learners with adequate support. Students new to the country, she said, don’t receive specific English development classes and staff members don’t provide translation services or interpreters for parents. The district denied any discrimination.

Under Cardona, OCR opened an investigation last October, but Ngido has heard nothing since. She said she hopes Delaware will be “more proactive” and investigate complaints that OCR won’t.

Department of Justice priorities

At least to eliminate the education department would shift OCR’s workload to the DOJ. But the education staff there has always been a fraction of the size of OCR’s. Simon’s former office once had 40 attorneys. Now, she said, it has six. 

The agency’s priorities have also changed. 

In with the Epoch Times, a conservative media outlet, Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for civil rights, said her agenda includes doing “some law enforcement” against hospitals conducting gender-affirming surgeries, elevating parental rights and dismissing school district consent decrees over desegregation. 

The DOJ said in a that it ended its “probing federal oversight” of integration efforts in Louisiana’s Plaquemines Parish schools because the district was spending “precious local resources” to meet past administration’s demands for data on issues such as hiring and discipline. 

In the interview, Dhillon said the department wants to “let people off the hook” if they corrected past discrimination. Consent decrees, in which a district pays a court-appointed monitor for ongoing oversight, are “a powerful tool” and appropriate when there’s been severe corruption or racism, she said. “What’s not appropriate is to maintain these rent-seeking financial arrangements …  beyond their normal life cycle.”

But Simons, the former DOJ section chief, said Black students are still disciplined at higher rates than their white peers and are more likely to attend “crumbling” schools. that racial and socioeconomic isolation has steadily increased since the 1980s.

“Segregation persists; inequality persists,” she said. 

Working with universities to collect and preserve existing data is another one of the fund’s goals. The administration, Smith said, might point to a declining number of OCR complaints as evidence of fewer problems in schools, when, in fact, it’s a byproduct of fewer investigations. 

“We want to be able to counter that narrative by showing that just because people aren’t going to OCR doesn’t mean that there aren’t real concerns and real issues of discrimination in our schools,” he said. 

‘The aid of legal counsel’

Jackie Wernz, a civil rights attorney and consultant who worked at the department during the Obama and first Trump administrations, said it’s important for nonprofits like the center to “step up,” but cautioned that outside efforts have limitations.

“Without a robust federal civil rights arm, civil rights in this country are not going to be enforced,” she said. 

States don’t have the same expertise and resources, she said, and it’s unclear who would enforce any changes.

But Smith countered that the bulk of what OCR investigators do is negotiate solutions between families and district staff. 

“Having parents and children do that with the aid of legal counsel,” he said, “will yield far better results and outcomes than if they try to navigate those systems on their own.”

But , brought by the 18-year-old in late October with the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, may never get investigated.��

That’s because it’s one of thousands of federal civil rights complaints and investigations against school districts nationally — particularly those alleging sexual misconduct or racism — that advocates say have been left to languish by the Trump administration with little hope for resolution. As the president and Secretary Linda McMahon seek to dismantle the Education Department — with its civil rights office among the hardest hit by layoffs — attorneys say students like Celestine have lost one of their few avenues for relief. 

“When we filed the complaint on Oct. 29, we knew the election was a few days out and we knew this could very well be the outcome,” said Andrew Hairston, the director of the Education Justice Project at the nonprofit Texas Appleseed, who is representing Celestine in her complaint against the Beaumont Independent School District and its police department. “It’s very difficult for Black children, in particular, who face the harms of school police, to seek any vindication of their rights.” 

Since President Donald Trump took office in January, civil rights attorneys at the Education Department have faced a whirlwind of directives and layoffs, throwing into uncertainty more than 12,000 civil rights investigations that stemmed from complaints by students, parents and their advocates. The Education Department and the Beaumont school district didn’t respond to requests for comment. 

After investigations nationwide were paused following Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration, the Education Department’s staff was cut roughly in half through layoffs of more than 1,300 employees, buyouts and early retirements. When the department announced mass firings earlier this month, at least 243 civil rights office staffers were cut. Meanwhile, seven of the 12 Office for Civil Rights regional offices were shuttered, including those in Philadelphia and Dallas, Texas, where Celestine’s complaint was filed. 

It’s a situation that civil rights advocates say has left the Education Department unequipped to carry out its functions mandated by Congress. In filed March 14, advocates and families accused the Trump administration of eviscerating students’ access to federal civil rights remedies, with particular harm to students of color, female students and LGBTQ+ youth. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has prioritized cases tied to antisemitism complaints and has that afford rights and protections to transgender students. 

The lawsuit alleges the changes undermine the civil rights office’s ability to process and investigate complaints and asked a judge to order that its staffing be restored to levels that allow complaints from the public to be investigated “promptly and equitably.” Staffing changes were “arbitrary and capricious” the lawsuit charges, because Trump administration officials “did not articulate a reasoned basis for their decision to sabotage” the Office for Civil Rights. 

“The fact that the federal government is kind of both eliminating these offices and then weaponizing what’s left of them to advance a very narrow definition of discrimination is not just troubling and sad, it’s also fundamentally antithetical to what democratic governance and law enforcement should look like,” said Johnathan Smith, the chief of staff and general counsel at the nonprofit National Center for Youth Law.

Smith represents the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the Education Department and McMahon. They include Nikki Carter, a Black mother of three, who alleges she was barred from her children’s Alabama schools in retaliation for her work as an advocate for children with disabilities. A second parent, identified only as A.W., charges they had to remove their child from school for safety reasons after the student was sexually assaulted and harassed by a classmate and the school did not adequately respond. Both parents are members of the , a nonprofit focused on the civil rights of children with disabilities.

Carter’s complaint was filed in September 2022 and A.W.’s in October 2023.

‘Communicating into a black hole’

It was spring 2024 when Celestine got into a fight and campus police in Beaumont were called to the scene. 

Though the civil rights complaint submitted to the Education Department by the nonprofit Texas Appleseed doesn’t seek to absolve Celestine for her role in the fight, it takes aim at what happened next: A police use-of-force incident captured on video.

“Responding after the fight occurred” when the teenager was sitting passively on the floor, the complaint states, the officer with the school district police department pepper-sprayed Celestine, grabbed her by the hair and kneed her in the face. 

“Such excessive force caused great harm” and was just the first form of punishment Celestine received for the fight, the complaint alleges. She was also suspended from school, placed in an alternative education program and required to complete community service — ”consequences that exceeded the nature of the incident in question,” it argues. 

“This complaint does not ignore the significance of an offense such as in-school fighting,” Texas Appleseed’s Hairston wrote to federal investigators. But the altercation that Celestine was involved in “did not warrant the abuse she was subjected to.” 

The issue at Beaumont is bigger than Celestine and a campus fight, Texas Appleseed contends. It “represents a salient example of how the school-to-prison pipeline operates,” according to the complaint, and highlights how Black students at the district and nationally are disproportionately subjected to law enforcement referrals in schools. 

The 12,000 civil rights investigations that were pending as of Jan. 14 ahead of Trump’s inauguration were listed in that hasn’t been updated since. Federal civil rights investigations��routinely take years to resolve and the oldest pending complaint at the time, alleging sex-based discrimination in athletics against an Oklahoma school district was opened in 2007.

After Trump’s swearing-in, the Education Department paused all investigations in its civil rights office. In February, the agency ended the pause on investigations focused solely on disability-based discrimination, and then lifted the hold on sex- and race-based complaints on March 6 — just a week before the 243 OCR staffers were fired. At least 178 attorneys in the civil rights division and dozens of equal opportunity specialists were eliminated. 

The Dallas regional office was among those shut down altogether, possibly relegating Celestine’s case and thousands more to oblivion. Smith with the National Center for Youth Law said he’s heard from fired Education Department employees who’ve lost access to their email accounts and all ability to communicate with families and attorneys about pending complaints. 

“Unless someone is actually going to go into their email accounts and pull up those emails, those communications are lost,” Smith said. As a result, parents and school officials who are communicating with Education Department officials about pending cases are “literally communicating into a black hole because there’s no way for that information to go anywhere.” 

Even if pending cases are transferred to other regional offices, Smith said, they should be considered dead on arrival. 

“I just don’t see how anyone can believe that there’s going to be any real process or consideration of those complaints at this point,” Smith said. 

‘Reinterpreting what is racial discrimination’

While certain cases appear to be jettisoned, fired Education Department staffers who spoke to ����Ӱ�� and others allege the department’s civil rights division has been weaponized to pursue politically motivated investigations. 

Among them is for opening a gender-neutral bathroom at one of its high schools. Last week, the Office for Civil Rights found the state of Maine violated Title IX, the federal law prohibiting sex-based discrimination, for allowing transgender student athletes to participate on girls’ sports teams. 

As the Trump administration targets diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at schools and colleges, the Education Department against the Ithaca, New York, school district, charging a Students of Color United Summit designed to “provide a safe space” and “uplift students of color” was discriminatory against white students. 

Harold Jordan, the nationwide education equity coordinator at the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, accused the Trump administration of launching “directed investigations” to advance political agendas “based on something they read in the newspaper” rather than from complaints filed by students attending those schools. 

“This department is clearly fixated on race and reinterpreting what is racial discrimination,” Jordan said. Ideological beliefs around racial discrimination and transgender students’ rights, he said “seem to have spilled over into how they see civil rights enforcement.” 

Jordan said the ACLU represents students in about 20 pending federal civil rights complaints nationally, yet “nobody is hearing anything” from the civil rights office about the status of those investigations. Among the complaints is an allegation by seven students that Pennsylvania’s Central Bucks School District against LGBTQ+ students, particularly those who are transgender and nonbinary. 

“Given their diatribes about gender ideology and stuff, I suspect that they’re not going to be terribly sympathetic,” Jordan said. “But we ultimately don’t know, and ultimately they’re supposed to follow the law and enforce the law.” 

Meanwhile, at least one civil rights complainant bowed out before the Trump administration could even weigh in, said Katie McKay, an attorney at the Brooklyn law firm C.A. Goldberg where she works on cases involving sexual discrimination, harassment and assault at K-12 schools and colleges. McKay said a college student whose sexual assault case “had been open since Obama was in office,” decided to voluntarily close the complaint after Trump was elected for a second term “because of concerns that this administration would mishandle the case.” 

“It’s frustrating and sad to see that this person has been sitting with this unresolved issue for like a decade and then it’s kind of this non-resolution,” McKay said. The decision to terminate the complaint was made in part on against the president himself. In 2023, a for sexual abuse against the writer E. Jean Carroll in 1996.��

“There’s this fear that those values were going to be applied to the case,” McKay said. “Closing out the case at least created a sense of closure on their own terms rather than letting this administration speak for them.” 

The White House on Wednesday said it had “” $175 million in federal funding from the University of Pennsylvania after a transgender swimmer, Lia Thomas, in 2022 won several medals in Division I women’s swimming.

Also on Wednesday, the U.S. Education Department said its Office of Civil Rights had that the state of Maine violated federal Title IX anti-discrimination law after Katie Spencer, a young transgender pole vaulter, won a state championship last month. The department said Maine could jeopardize federal funding if it doesn’t “swiftly and completely” reverse its policies.��

Protests followed after Thomas and Spencer��began competing in women’s competitions and fared better than they previously had in men’s��events.

The moves follow through on a promise Trump made 16 days after his second inauguration, when he issued an threatening to rescind federal funding from schools that let transgender women play on women’s sports teams

As with other aspects of Trump’s presidency, it leaves institutions in the unenviable position of caving before an increasingly aggressive White House — or fighting back in federal court, where many of the legal issues remain unsettled and, in a few cases, have actually favored trans students.

The order’s practical effect: confusion, especially in the roughly half of states that allow transgender athletes to compete in sports consistent with their gender identity. These state laws and policies now face a powerful conservative backlash that sees trans athletes’ participation at every level as patently unfair and itself, and seeks to remove them — and their accomplishments — altogether.

Leading the charge: the education department’s Office of Civil Rights, which has opened more than half a dozen investigations in two months. Along with probes of anti-semitism, trans athletic policies now dominate OCR’s investigative portfolio, despite to the office by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

Jackie Gharapour Wernz, a former OCR attorney who now consults for educational institutions, called the new administration’s approach “unprecedented — but it’s not even just unprecedented. It’s so much further beyond precedent that it just feels like we’re in a completely different world at this point.”

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” she said.

‘Fairness and safety’

Penn, Trump’s alma mater, late Wednesday said it had not received any notification or details of the action. But a spokesperson told the that the university “has always followed NCAA and Ivy League policies regarding student participation on athletic teams.”

A spokesperson for the Maine Department of Education did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

As with Maine, several states are finding that adhering to their own laws can invite a federal investigation — and an abrupt cut in aid — from an administration that is comfortable calling out educators who they see as failing to protect young women in sports. 

The complexity in many ways mirrors public perception. Recent , for instance, find that while 56% of Americans support policies that protect trans people from discrimination in jobs, housing and public spaces, 66% favor laws and policies that require trans athletes to compete on teams that match their sex assigned at birth. 

“As a parent, I’m concerned about fairness and safety for my girls in sports,” said Tiffany Justice, a co-founder of Moms for Liberty and a mother of four. Allowing “biological males” to compete in women’s events, she said, “undermines the level playing field” that federal regulations were meant to protect, “given the inherent physical advantages men have.”

In 2025, the issue no longer falls entirely along ideological lines. Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom has said transgender athletes playing in women’s sports is “” to female athletes. 

States evenly divided

Title IX prohibits sex discrimination in education programs that receive federal funding, but whether that applies to trans students and athletics remains an open question. President Biden in 2022 put forth a sweeping set of changes protecting students against discrimination based not just on sex but on sexual orientation and gender identity, in effect making transgender students a protected class. But the proposal sidestepped the question of athletics, with administration officials at the time saying those regulations would come soon. 

They never came, and the Title IX protections for LGBTQ students have been repeatedly struck down by the courts. Biden put forth a draft rule to protect transgender athletes that acknowledged fairness issues but suggested they could be solved on a case-by-case basis. He last December in advance of Trump’s second term.��

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives approved a transgender ban on women’s and girls’ sports, but the Senate a bid to consider it earlier this month, leaving educators in many states to figure it out on their own.

Add to that in federal courts that have upheld the rights of trans athletes, said Wernz, and schools are in “an incredibly tough position,” especially considering Trump’s order. 

State laws are on the subject: 23 states and the District of Columbia allow transgender students to play on sports teams consistent with their gender identity.

Five days after Trump’s executive order, , which oversees sports in public and private schools, that it was banning trans athletes from participating in girls’ sports, saying schools needed “clear and consistent direction” on the issue. For more than a decade, the group had allowed trans athletes to play via a waiver if they undertook sex reassignment before puberty or if they did hormone therapy, among other requirements.

The league, which oversees 318 schools and about 177,000 students, said just five students applied for waivers last year.

In addition to Maine and Penn, OCR is investigating state athletic associations in California and Minnesota, where officials have said they’ll continue allowing trans athletes to compete on teams that match their gender identity. On March 3, it announced an into a school district in Washington State that allowed a trans player to compete in basketball last month.

It’s also San Jose State University and the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association for what it says are violations of Title IX.

Wernz, the former OCR attorney, who worked in both the Obama and Trump administrations, said schools and districts must now decide, “‘Do we comply with the federal courts, or do we comply with the Department of Education?’ Frankly it’s a pretty new situation.” 

‘We’ll see you in court.’

To many, the case of Thomas, the Penn swimmer, has come to epitomize the current complications. In 2022, Thomas, who’d on the men’s team before transitioning in 2019, rose from 554th-ranked in the 200-yard freestyle to fifth. In the 500-yard freestyle, she rose from 65th as a male athlete to first in women’s competition.

While Penn and several teammates supported her during the process, three former Penn swimmers to remove Thomas’ achievements from the record books.

Pennsylvania’s interscholastic athletics governing body recently its policy to recognize Trump’s executive order, but the Philadelphia School District said it’ll ignore the change in favor of its own policy, adopted in 2016, which allows trans athletes to play in sports that match their gender identity. 

While a few experts say that could jeopardize an estimated $216 million in Title I funding, Philadelphia civil rights attorney noted that Trump’s executive order doesn’t carry the weight of law — or supersede Title IX, state law or multiple court decisions that have sided with trans students.

She said Trump “has been purposely sowing a lot of chaos and confusion,” with schools fearful of losing federal funds.

The push to ban trans athletes comes despite the fact that vanishingly small numbers of these students are pushing to play. Shortly after Trump issued the executive order, NCAA President Charlie Baker said the organization would to restrict female athletic competitions solely to student athletes “assigned female at birth.” Several sports associations followed suit, even though Baker last year told Congress that of the more than 500,000 students it represents, fewer than 10 are transgender.

Chris Young, the principal of , a 720-student regional school in Newport, Vt., near the Canadian border, rarely thinks about the topic. He knows that if trans female athletes in Vermont want to play girl’s sports teams, they can. Though he has no trans athletes on his roster, Vermont says treating students differently is illegal. 

In an interview, he recalled several conversations with students asking whether it’s fair that a young person who’s transitioning from male to female could gain a competitive advantage in sports. 

“My response is, ‘No one does this as a choice. It’s who they are, and it’s an incredibly difficult road to go down if you are a transgender athlete,’” he said. “‘No one chooses that because it’s easy, and no one chooses that because they want to win a state championship or set a record. That’s just not how it works.’”

But when trans athletes like Thomas win at nearly any competition, the backlash is often outsized. In Maine, Spencer, the transgender pole vaulter, in mid-February won the Class B state championship in pole vaulting with a jump of 10 feet, 6 inches — more than six inches higher than the next competitor. That led state Rep. Laurel Libby, a Republican, to post on X that in a previous season, as a male athlete, Spencer had in the event.

The issue a few days later, when President Trump got into a televised spat with Maine Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, during a meeting of governors at the White House. With Mills’ colleagues looking on, Trump called her out, asking if she’d comply with his executive order.

Mills said she’s “complying with state and federal laws.” Maine bars discrimination based on gender identity.

Trump responded, “We are the federal law,” and threatened to pull Maine’s federal funding. 

“We’ll see you in court,” she replied.

Later that day, the education department . Days later, the administration released a that all but foretold the outcome, saying it’s “shameful” that Mills “refuses to stand with women and girls.” 

For her part, Mills says no president can withhold funding authorized by Congress “in an attempt to coerce someone into compliance with his will.” 

In a , she added, “Maine may be one of the first states to undergo an investigation by his Administration, but we won’t be the last.”

Experts consider a released by the department late Friday to be more in line with how the courts have traditionally viewed illegal discrimination.

“This is such a far cry from what they put out two weeks ago,” said Jackie Wernz, a civil rights attorney and consultant who worked in both the Obama and first Trump administrations. “It’s downright reasonable.”

Part of the Trump administration’s larger effort to root out diversity, equity and inclusion, the called diversity a “nebulous” goal and warned that districts could be subject to investigations for treating “students differently on the basis of race.” It prompted opposition from , and education . And it left some educators wondering topics like Black History Month.

The Q&A, however, asserts that officials would not automatically consider anything labelled DEI to be illegal and would examine as part of its investigations whether a policy actually resulted in discrimination against students. Cultural and historical observances are fine, the document says, as long as all students are welcome to participate, regardless of race.

“They were trying to see how far they could go, and then they got the pushback,” Wernz said, noting the timing of the department’s guidance. “I love that they say you can celebrate Black history at the end of the month.”

In a on the changes, Wernz noted that the department clarified that it would need evidence that a particular racial group was harmed before it decided to launch an investigation. But she still warned districts to avoid lessons that separate students by race or assignments that ask them to identify their race. 

Neeraja Deshpande, a policy analyst at the conservative Independent Women’s Forum, said there was no need to walk back any instructions to districts.

“I don’t think the earlier letter needed to be softened,” she said. “But, of course, school districts were going to have questions and this seemed to answer them.”

‘Vagueness, Confusion and Chaos’

The department is still likely to get wide-ranging reports of what members of the public consider “divisive ideologies and indoctrination.” The portal it unveiled last week doesn’t define what the department considers to be illegal discrimination. 

The additional guidance hasn’t prompted the American Federation of Teachers to drop its federal lawsuit over the original letter. In a statement, AFT President Randi Weingarten said that the Q&A “just made things murkier.”

Last week, the union, along with AFT-Maryland and the American Sociological Association, sued, appeared to ban the teaching of “systemic and structural racism” in American history. The lawsuit says the teachers would be afraid to discuss Jim Crow laws, the internment of Japanese Americans and other examples of historical discrimination.

The Q&A doesn’t discuss how teachers should approach lessons on history and only says, “OCR’s assessment of school policies and programs depends on the facts and circumstances of each case.”

“If you are a classroom teacher, you still have no idea what you can or can’t teach when it comes to the history of the United States and the world,” Weingarten  said. “It seems like vagueness, confusion and chaos is the point.”

Leaders say they have no plans to hit pause on the project despite a from the U.S. Department of Education that warns against efforts to “preference certain racial groups.” The strongly worded message from Craig Trainor, the top civil rights official at the department, said schools could be investigated for treating “students differently on the basis of race.” 

The Long Beach community asked for “a space that lifts the experience of Black youth,” said Deputy Superintendent Tiffany Brown, adding that the district has a “commitment to listen to those voices.”

Long Beach is not alone. While many school leaders at the letter’s tone, several left-leaning states and districts have since countered Trainor’s threats with tough statements of their own. 

“We’re going to be as inclusive as we’ve always been,” said Gustavo Balderas, superintendent of the Beaverton School District in Oregon. He called the department’s letter “an attempt to bully” districts. “Let’s not be hyper-reactive to things that come out right now.”

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey in a statement that DEI efforts make the state stronger. California state Superintendent assured districts that memos can’t override existing law or “impose new terms on existing agreements.” And Illinois state chief Tony Sanders reminded educators that state law on the history of different racial groups and LGBTQ issues. 

The letter is part of the Trump administration’s larger DEI offensive, which has included and the cancellation of millions of dollars in contracts related to equity goals.

On Thursday, the department unveiled , a website where the public can report schools they think are illegally discriminating against students.

Many districts and advocacy organizations like , the School Superintendents Association, have homed in on a footnote in Trainor’s letter stating that it “does not have the force and effect of law and does not bind the public or create new legal standards.” 

“It is just a letter. It’s not rules or regs. It’s not changing law,” said Sonia Park, executive director of the Diverse Charter Schools Association, a network with member schools nationwide. “We have diverse in our name. It’s not something we’re going to fade away from.” 

The letter referenced , a 2023 ruling in which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down racial preferences in college admissions. But some experts say the letter is inconsistent with the court’s opinion. 

“The letter goes far beyond what the Supreme Court said in SFFA, and, indeed, even contradicts it,” said Neal McCluskey, director of the Center for Educational Freedom at the libertarian Cato Institute. Trainor, for example, said that when making admission decisions, colleges can’t factor essays in which students write about the role of race in their lives. 

But that’s the opposite of what the court ruled, McCluskey said. In the majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts said nothing in the ruling “should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration or otherwise.”��

According to Madison Biedermann, a spokeswoman for the department, officials plan to issue additional guidance. Andrew Manna, an Indianapolis-area education lawyer, said it might also take an actual complaint against a district or an OCR investigation to get clarity on what officials consider to be illegal discrimination. 

But some welcome the department’s more muscular approach. 

“I think, and hope, the department will be at least as strict as the Obama administration was,” said Neeraja Deshpande, a policy analyst at the conservative Independent Women’s Forum. She’s referring to a 2014 alerting districts that they risked civil rights investigations if they disproportionately disciplined Black and Hispanic students. A few months later, OCR launched an investigation into the , later finding over 100 instances where Black students were disciplined more harshly than their white peers for similar infractions.

“This is a fundamental question of fairness, as was SFFA,” Deshpande said. “OCR should absolutely go after schools that undermine fairness via unfair DEI preferences.”

Groups or classes or extra academic support aimed at specific are among the practices that Parents Defending Education, a conservative advocacy group, argues are illegal.

The American Federation of Teachers, along with AFT-Maryland and the American Sociological Association, is challenging the letter. They in federal court Tuesday, saying the “vague and clearly unconstitutional memo is a grave attack on students, our profession and knowledge itself.”

‘Target-rich environment’

Leaders in more right-leaning parts of the country said they’re also not worried about Trainor’s letter, largely because lawmakers in their states have already banned DEI.

Last year, Utah, for example, passed that labels diversity, equity and inclusion “prohibited discriminatory practices.” When Utah’s education department gave the legislature a compliance update, there were no violations to report, state Superintendent Sydnee Dickson told ����Ӱ��. 

“We didn’t need to make dramatic changes in our K-12 system,” she said. 

Trainor’s letter followed an from the president that called on the education department to devise a plan for stripping districts of their federal funds if they advance “discriminatory equity ideology.” Officials have until the end of April to devise such policies. 

But the OCR letter accelerates the process, warning districts to “cease all efforts” to accomplish what it calls “nebulous” diversity goals and that it will begin taking “appropriate measures to assess compliance” March 1. The department has yet to specify what those measures might be.

Parents Defending Education has already done a lot of the work for the new administration. The organization keeps a of districts nationwide that have equity-related policies and initiatives. Last year, it forced the Los Angeles district to revise its Black Student Achievement Plan, which provided additional counseling and academic support in schools predominantly serving Black students. All students, not just those who are Black, are now eligible for the extra help. 

 The group’s list has more districts from California than from any other state. 

“California is a target-rich environment for the administration’s causes,” said Laura Preston, director of government affairs for F3Law, which handles education cases throughout the state. 

She suggested that the state might not want to risk the loss of federal education funds at a time when state resources are needed to rebuild parts of Los Angeles ravaged by fire. But she also questioned OCR’s ability to conduct thorough investigations when the department is . The letter, she said, sets up a potential clash between states and the federal government. prohibits the government from mandating or controlling instruction or withholding funds from districts if they don’t comply. 

“Trump keeps saying he wants states’ rights [and] then tries to be the federal school board,” she said. “It doesn’t work in the long haul.”

‘Committed to full compliance’

To show that some education leaders welcome Trainor’s message, the department last week highlighted statements from several state chiefs who agree with the letter. 

“I applaud this directive from the U.S. Department of Education and Florida stands ready to assist other states to end racial preferences in education,” said Manny Diaz, Florida education commissioner. And Ellen Weaver, state superintendent in South Carolina, said her department is “committed to full compliance with the U.S. Department of Education’s directive.”

But Diaz, Weaver and Dickson from Utah were also among the 12 state education leaders who last month told Linda McMahon, Trump’s education secretary nominee, that they wanted the department to stop issuing “dear colleague” letters intended to push states to “take actions aligned to the current administration’s priorities and opinions.”

McCluskey at Cato said the letter is still consistent with their request, which was to clearly state that dear colleague letters are not legally binding. But he still finds such missives problematic.

“For all intents and purposes they impose new law, while those who issue them simultaneously claim they legally change nothing,” he said. “Of course, they shouldn’t change anything. Changing law is a legislative responsibility.”

Aaron Spence, superintendent of the Loudoun County Public Schools in Virginia — which has long been targeted on Parents Defending Education’s — said he’s tried to reassure the community that his district isn’t doing anything illegal, like using racial quotas or hiring staff based on race instead of qualifications.

In January 2022, just after his election, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin issued an demanding that schools avoid “inherently divisive concepts.” But Spence doesn’t view his district’s to be controversial and said under , districts are required to report student progress for different subgroups. 

“People get this pie mentality, which is ‘Oh gosh, if they do more for this group of students, they’re doing less for this group of students,’ ” he said. “The goal for everybody is 100% success. We’re working to ensure all of them get over the bar of achievement that we’ve set for them.”

The 12-11 vote fell along party lines, with the Republican chairman of the committee, Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, calling McMahon “the partner this committee needs to improve the nation’s education system.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an Independent who is the committee’s ranking member, said he liked McMahon personally. “I respect the work she has done in building a large and successful business.” But he said no matter who the education secretary is, “he or she will not have the power” to make consequential decisions. A small group of people in The White House, he said, will be “calling the shots.”

Sanders was referring to massive cuts at the department by auditors deputized by billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

Along with other Democrats, Sanders criticized White House plans to dismantle the U.S. Education Department, which he said “provides vital resources for 26 million kids who live in high-poverty school districts. These are the kids who most need our help.”

During her confirmation hearing last week, McMahon said she supported dismantling the department, but admitted that the administration needs congressional support to do it. 

“We’d like to do this right,” she told the committee. “We’d like to make sure that we are presenting a plan that I think our senators could get on board with.”

Sanders on Thursday said that was misguided. “Is it a perfect entity?” he said. “No. Is it bureaucratic? Yes. Can we reform it? Yes. Should we abolish it? No.”

Likewise, Sen. Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat, said he’d vote no on McMahon’s nomination for that reason. “I can’t vote for somebody who will willfully engage in the destruction of the very agency she wants to lead. That is disqualifying.”

McMahon’s nomination proceeds as the administration sends decidedly mixed signals on its education agenda. President Trump has nominated two experienced, well-regarded educators — North Dakota state Superintendent Kirsten Baesler and former Tennessee education chief Penny Schwinn — as top lieutenants to McMahon, even as Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency decimates the department’s research arm, slashing millions of dollars in contracts in search of waste, fraud and abuse. At a press conference last week, Trump called the department “a con job.” 

McMahon, for her part, has said she supports DOGE’s work, saying, “It is worthwhile to take a look at the programs before money goes out the door.” 

While she’s expected to easily earn confirmation in the Republican-controlled Senate, with support among conservative groups, McMahon faces opposition from education and civil rights groups that more broadly oppose the White House education cuts. 

The conservative group last week said Trump was smart to nominate McMahon to lead the department “in what we hope is a short tenure” as she works to shutter it.

Conservative commentator Rick Hess McMahon’s WWE experience gives her the right background for the top job: “Considering that it’s an agency that’s long been plagued by low morale and accused of being too chummy with the unions and the college cartel,” he wrote, “there’s a strong case that what’s needed is an outsider with a strong managerial track record.”

By contrast, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights on Wednesday urged lawmakers to reject her nomination, saying in a co-signed by more than 240 groups that she’s “unprepared and unqualified” to lead the agency. Her confirmation would be “disastrous for students, their families, and educators,” the group said. 

Worth more than $3 billion

One of 13 billionaires tapped to lead Trump’s administration, McMahon has held tightly to Trump’s key education priorities: advancing private school choice, preventing trans students from competing in sports consistent with their gender identity and fighting antisemitism. 

McMahon’s confirmation has taken longer to schedule than those of most other cabinet nominees as the education committee waited for her to complete ethics paperwork detailing vast financial assets and ties to far-right organizations. Her net worth totals more than $3 billion.

As a board member of Trump Media & Technology Group, which runs the president’s Truth Social platform, she earns $18,400 quarterly. Politico reported that she also received stock in the company worth more than $800,000 in late January. McMahon is also on the advisory council for the Daily Caller, a conservative media outlet that has given her favorable coverage. 

If confirmed, McMahon has promised to step down from her board positions, forfeit any shares in Truth Social that she doesn’t yet fully own and divest from those that she does within three months. She also earns interest income from education-related municipal bonds that fund school construction across the country and has pledged to divest from those as well.

A vote before the full Senate has yet to be scheduled.

But educators said they are determined to help these students learn, even through this difficult time. Diana Herrera, who teaches in California’s Central Valley but who declined to name her school, vowed to protect her students as if they were her own children. Even with her sensitivity to their plight, she said, attendance has dropped — including among those born in the United States. 

“They are concerned for their family members,” Herrera said, through tears, adding her school has not given teachers any directives on how to address or quell their concerns. “If I can’t give them the right answer or if I can’t make them feel better, they are not going to continue coming.” 

Trump recently removed barriers that once kept immigration agents away from . Conservative forces — who have urged undocumented residents to consider — have also, , been strategizing to undo , the landmark 1982 Supreme Court ruling that a child cannot be denied a public education based on immigration status. 

Amid these challenges, Cheruba Chavez, who is an English language and special education teacher in New Orleans, pledged to keep her students safe and engaged: Those who miss school will get follow-up calls encouraging them to return, and those who transfer will receive all the help they need to avoid gaps in their learning.

“They are coming to school for something that no one can take away from them: an education,” she said. 

Despite the anxiety around immigration and deportation, Hector Villagra, vice president of policy advocacy and community education at the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said he believes campus raids are unlikely. 

But he said staff members should understand their legal obligation: Villagra, an attorney, said schools typically do not have to honor what he called “administrative warrants” from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. Most are mere forms issued through the Department of Homeland Security or ICE and are not judicial warrants signed by a judge or magistrate, he said. 

“These documents do not give ICE agents any authority to enter school premises without permission,” he said. 

Dan McNeil, general counsel for the American Federation of Teachers, echoed his remarks at the teachers union’s virtual town hall Thursday night. He said ICE agents on campus should be referred to the school’s administration. As for teachers, they can remain mum. “You have the right to remain silent,” he said. “You should not disclose the immigration status of your student — or even let them know if a student that they ask about is on campus.” 

ICE did not immediately respond to questions about its authority. 

Alejandra Vazquez Baur, cofounder of the National Newcomers Network, said attorneys, not front office workers, should be the ones to decipher which warrants must be acted upon.

She added that Trump’s tactics, which she characterized as “an attack” on immigrant families, are designed to make them believe they do not belong in public spaces. “Families fear to send their kids to school,” she said. “This is about exclusion, racism and power. The cruelty is the point.”

But Vazquez Baur added that immigrant advocates are using this moment to organize, unite, share ideas and push back, when possible, against the president’s directives. 

Even so, tensions remain high on the ground and some schools are cancelling in-person events for parents who are worried about coming to campus, said Nancy Rosas, senior director of schools for the Internationals Network. “Overall that fear makes people behave like they want to hide in the shadows,” she said. 

Viri Carrizales, president of ImmSchools, founded in 2018 to support educators in creating a welcoming environment for immigrant students, said the consternation around immigration has left some educators worried about addressing the matter head on. 

Carrizales, who was undocumented in her K-12 and college journey, said some school staff are prohibiting the distribution of “know-your-rights” cards to students for fear of drawing attention to their schools: She said, too, their silence on these critical issues makes immigrant families feel unsupported. Some are withdrawing their children entirely.��

����Ӱ�� also reached out to multilingual learner teachers on Facebook. While some said attendance held steady, others, like Tammy Ingraham Baggett, who teaches multilingual learners in Harris County, Texas, said numbers declined noticeably in the past week.

She said two students told her they were going to miss school because of possible immigration raids: One child, whose mother was concerned for her safety at school, asked to work on her assignments at home for the rest of the week because of ICE. 

“Is your mom scared?” Ingraham Baggett recalled asking the ninth grader. “She said emphatically, ‘Yes.’ I asked if she was scared. She shrugged, eyes downcast, and nodded yes.”

Ariel Taylor Smith, senior director of the National Parents Union Policy & Action Center, whose organization has taken a strong stance in favor of immigrant communities, said she is worried about students in Republican states and about those living in the suburbs or in rural areas. 

“I think a lot of our kids in our urban cities are in districts that have the infrastructure to provide regular communication with parents in multiple languages,” she said. “That’s muscle they’ve already built — and it’s one everyone should have.”

Some suburban and rural districts might not have that same capacity, she said.

A federal judge in Washington state today President Donald J. Trump’s three-day-old executive order to end birthright citizenship. U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour, a Reagan appointee, called the order .” He agreed with the four state plaintiffs that it would cause irreparable harm to those denied their right to citizenship, subjected to the risk of deportation and family separation and deprived of federally funded medical care and public benefits that “prevent child poverty and promote child health,” also impacting their education. A separate federal lawsuit is pending in Massachusetts.

— plus San Francisco and Washington, D.C. — and several civil rights groups are suing to block President Donald J. Trump’s move to undo birthright citizenship through executive order, a constitutional challenge education leaders say could transform public schools.��

Trump, who rode a to a second term, argues that to any child whose mother is unlawfully present in the United States or lawfully present on a temporary basis — such as foreign students — and whose father is neither a citizen nor a lawful permanent resident. 

The move garnered immediate backlash: Birthright citizenship is guaranteed by the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868. It states that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.” 

“If you lose the protections of birthright citizenship and is overturned or somehow ignored, then I think a lot of families would withdraw their children from school out of fear of deportation,” said immigration advocate and policy expert Timothy Boals, referring to the 1982 Supreme Court case which forbids schools from denying enrollment based on a child’s or their parents’ immigration status. 

Conservative forces aligned with the Trump administration have been strategizing an end to Plyler . That potential threat is now being amplified with the affront on birthright citizenship and Tuesday’s announcement that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers are now free to , churches and other once-protected areas. The president has already pledged and a return to .

“What that means is more children are denied an education and that’s not good for our society if they end up staying,” said Boals, “and it’s certainly not good for the students wherever they end up going.”

Speaking specifically about the ICE enforcement change, Laura Gardner, who founded Immigrant Connections, a consulting group that works with educators, said the policy will create “intense fear” and could negatively impact student attendance and family engagement. It will also be difficult for teachers, whom she said can’t do their job when children aren’t in school. 

“As educators, we always remind students and families that schools are a safe space and now we can’t really guarantee that,” she told ����Ӱ��. “Ultimately, all this is going to do is hurt innocent children.”

About lived with an unauthorized immigrant parent in 2022, according to the Pew Research Center. About 250,000 babies were born to unauthorized immigrant parents in the United States in 2016, the latest year for which information is available, according to . This represents a 36% decrease from a peak of about 390,000 in 2007.

The president also seeks to prohibit government agencies from issuing documents recognizing an infant’s citizenship if born under the circumstances he outlined — or from accepting documents issued by state, local or other authorities acknowledging their citizenship. 

The controversial order could go into effect Feb. 19, leaving children born on U.S. soil to non-citizen parents, from that date on, without any legal status. “They will all be deportable and many will be stateless,” according to . 

It said Trump has no right to rewrite or nullify a constitutional amendment, “Nor is he empowered by any other source of law to limit who receives United States citizenship at birth.”

Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, one of the groups fighting the move, called it a reckless and ruthless repudiation of American values.

“Birthright citizenship is part of what makes the United States the strong and dynamic nation that it is,” he said. “This order seeks to repeat one of the gravest errors in American history, by creating a permanent subclass of people born in the U.S. who are denied full rights as Americans.”

Romero’s remarks harken back to one of the Supreme Court’s most reviled rulings: . In that 1857 case, the court ruled that enslaved people, including Dred Scott, were not citizens of the United States and, as a result, could not expect any protection from the federal government or courts, according to the . 

The ruling, which pushed the nation toward civil war, was essentially undone by the 13th and 14th amendments. 

New York Attorney General Letitia James lambasted Trump for trying to reverse what has been a hallmark of the nation for more than 150 years.

“This executive order is nothing but an attempt to sow division and fear, but we are prepared to fight back with the full force of the law to uphold the integrity of our Constitution,” she said. “As Attorney General, I will always protect the legal rights of immigrants and their families and communities.”

If Trump’s order is implemented, the U.S. would join other nations that do not allow birthright citizenship — or greatly restrict such protections — including and Australia. 

As of 2022, reported that unauthorized immigrants represented 3.3% of the total U.S. population and 23% of the foreign-born population: Immigrants as a whole comprised 14.3% of the nation’s population that year, below the record high of 14.8% reached in 1890.

At an inaugural prayer service Tuesday, an Episcopal bishop made to reconsider his views on immigrants and their kids. 

“… they may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbors,” the Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde said. “… I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear their parents will be taken away …”

The next day Trumpand described Edgar Budde as a “so-called Bishop” and a “Radical Left hard line Trump hater” who was not compelling or smart.

These are among the numerous allegations of antisemitism The School District of Philadelphia failed to adequately address in the 2022-23 and 2023-24 school years, according to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.  

Pennsylvania’s largest district didn’t demonstrate that it fulfilled its legal obligation to evaluate whether a hostile environment existed in schools and, if so, take the necessary steps to eliminate and prevent it, the office found.

As part of an with the department, the 121,202-student district pledged to issue an anti-harassment statement that will be published on its website and printed or linked to in publications aimed at the school community. It will also provide annual staff training on federal law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of shared ancestry and ethnic characteristics — and improve its documentation of related complaints.   

A district spokesperson said in a Jan. 3 statement that the school system “strives to create welcoming and inclusive environments that allow our students to feel safe and heard,” and that it takes complaints of bullying, harassment, and discrimination seriously. The district has also been embroiled in several recent controversies alleging that it

As part of its agreement, Philadelphia schools will also provide an age-appropriate program for all 6th- through 12th-grade students to address discrimination: They’ll be taught to identify and report harassment — and will be informed about the disciplinary action that will follow a credible complaint. 

The district will also administer an OCR-approved school climate assessment in which students will be asked about the prevalence of harassment, their willingness to report it and how they believe such cases will be handled. Philadelphia schools will provide the office with its findings and take steps to address any concerns. 

The Department of Education has dropped a flurry of agreements regarding K-12 and higher education discrimination complaints in the weeks before President-elect Donald Trump’s second inauguration. Trump has, on many occasions, pledged to , leaving its fate and that of its civil rights office uncertain. 

Two other higher education cases announced in late December — one focused on the system and the other at — also sprung from the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza. 

The ongoing conflict set off student protests throughout the country, including at some of the nation’s top colleges.

In the case involving five UC campuses, the department found the universities failed to respond promptly or effectively to incidents of harassment based on students’ Jewish, Israeli, Muslim, Palestinian and Arab ancestry — and some of them subjected students to different treatment regarding access to campus or university programs. 

The Cincinnati case, which included all such students except for Israeli, found the university misapplied laws governing reports of harassment or more commonly ignored discrimination complaints. 

Another case, this one announced in early January, found likely operated a hostile environment harmful to many student groups, including those of Jewish and Palestinian heritage. was also called out in the new year because its records failed to show whether it considered if nearly 100 harassment complaints — many by Jewish and Arab students — amounted to a hostile environment. 

In addition to numerous antisemitic incidents, the Philadelphia case also includes allegations of harassment against Black students. A Jewish teacher noting the hostility she and Jewish students felt, added that some of her Black students were called slaves and told to pick cotton until their hands bled. “The teacher wrote that they were traumatized and felt sick and asked who was going to help the students,” an OCR filing states. 

The Philadelphia school system also failed to maintain a required list of such complaints: a keyword search on a database where these incidents were supposed to be logged did not include several alleged offenses flagged by those who brought the complaint, OCR found. As part of the agreement, staff will be annually trained to better process, investigate and resolve such cases. 

OCR investigators examined documentation provided by an unnamed complainant, a community organization of approximately 250 Jewish families in the district and an advocacy group. The office also spoke at length with the district’s Title IX coordinator, among others.

Michael Balaban, president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, filed a complaint with the district in April 2024. He said he did so to represent the concerns of many Jewish families, who told him they feared retribution if they complained directly. 

Balaban said teachers addressing the war should have presented facts about the Middle East in neutral terms, allowing students to come to their own conclusions. He said he is grateful for OCR’s efforts and hopes the district will move forward with making school a safer environment for all. 

“I’m happy with the work that OCR did,” he told ����Ӱ��. “At the end of the day, the school board has to comply. That is really what we will be watching.”

In one case that sparked controversy, several posters, including those that read, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free,” a slogan that critics see as calling for and “This is not war, this is genocide,” were displayed along with the Palestinian flag in close proximity to an Israeli flag in the common area of a school. The principal had the materials removed the morning they were discovered. 

Interviews revealed that a group of students stayed after school in a teacher’s classroom to create the posters. Video footage showed that teacher and two others displayed the materials. A principal later told the educators their actions created a hostile environment and a subsequent report about the incident noted it had a “negative and profound impact on Israeli and non-Israeli staff and students causing feelings of alienation and outrage.”

The teachers were not named by OCR, but and ultimately quit their jobs for trying to make the school a safe space for Palestinian students. 

“The punishment is not because we hung up posters, the punishment is not because we didn’t have parents’ permission after school, they’re going to say that that’s what it is,” one of the teachers told The Intercept. “But the punishment is the fact that these posters are pro-Palestinian, they are anti-genocide, they are anti-violence towards Palestinian people.”

These incidents, along with others, have caused an ongoing furor, one that has played out at raucous school board meetings. One October 2024 session was disrupted when protestors demanded that another pro-Palestinian teacher, . Her supporters said she was being punished for her views; those who complained against her said she made credible threats of violence against Jewish parents. 

The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers did not respond to multiple requests for comment. 

The allegations of antisemitism detailed in OCR’s report, some supported by district documentation, include the following: 

• A teacher, in grading a geography assignment where students were asked to name various countries on a map, crossed out Israel and hand wrote Palestine on a list of possible answers. The school principal sent a note to families acknowledging the incident, stating that it left “students feeling unsupported.” 

• Students drew swastikas and the Hitler salute on a paper left on a classmate’s desk, and called the child “Big nose,” “Rich kid,” and “Cracker.” The student was put in a headlock and thrown into a trash can. The student reported the incidents to a teacher, but no action was taken until their parents notified the principal. The district transferred the student to a new school. 

• The teacher whose supporters rallied for her reinstatement wrote on social media: “Another Educator Misconduct Complaint to the Pennsylvania Department of Education and Another Dismissal. What’s the end goal here? … I guess I can’t expect anything less from Zionist genocide supporters. Zionism is Racism.” Another teacher, showing support for the post, responded with an expletive-filled rant against “all those who are trying to get those of us who speak out against a literal genocide in trouble.”

• The dismissed teacher i by name on social media: “I asked y’all nicely to keep my name out y’all mouth…Y’all been harassing me for almost a year…You can report me to the Department of Education 10 million times… What you want to happen won’t.” The next day, the teacher posted to her public Instagram account, “Blacked owned [gun emoji] shops in or near Philly? Asking for a friend.”

• Another teacher wrote on social media that, “These Zionists are no different from the swarms of white supremacist spectators cheering on the public lynchings of over 3,000 Black people.”

• Another wrote: “Let’s not be confused about this complaint, this is a group of racist white parents trying to get black teachers and staff fired, for fear that their children will learn the truth. (that their parents are racist.)” 

One teacher’s social media accounts were shared by the district with an external law firm so it could conduct an investigation. According to the district, the firm concluded the educator did not engage in discrimination or harassment based on religion or national origin.

The civil rights office said it requested a copy of the firm’s findings, but the district refused, citing attorney-client privilege. Christina Clark, a district spokesperson, told ����Ӱ�� some information was shared with OCR.

Education has never been a top priority of President-elect Donald Trump’s, but that doesn’t mean schools — or students — will be immune from Trump’s agenda in the next four years, education experts say. 

Trump may slash school funding, cut civil rights protections and gut the U.S. Department of Education, based on his previous statements and the visions outlined in the  and , a conservative manifesto reimagining the federal government. 

But students may experience the most devastating effects. Trump has  of undocumented residents and crackdowns on LGBTQ rights, which could lead to higher absenteeism, higher rates of bullying and greater anxiety generally on school campuses.

“The stress created by the threat of deportations cannot be overestimated,” said UCLA education professor John Rogers, who’s studied how politics plays out in K-12 education. “It absolutely will have an impact on attendance, and it absolutely will affect parents’ ability to participate in their children’s education.”

Student  somewhat in California since the COVID-19 pandemic, but remains very high — 24.3% last year. During the first Trump presidency, Latino student attendance and academic performance dropped significantly in areas affected by deportation arrests, . 

During Trump’s first term, his deportation efforts were foiled a bit by the courts and by disorganization at the White House, Rogers said, but those obstacles aren’t likely to be present this time.

That could leave thousands of children vulnerable to deportation or becoming separated from their parents. More than  were undocumented in the most recent census count, and almost half of California children have , the Public Policy Institute of California reported. Most of the undocumented residents are from Latin America, but a majority of newer arrivals come from Asia.

Threat to cut $8 billion for California schools 

LGBTQ students are also likely to face challenges under a Trump presidency. Trump has often disparaged “woke” policies that protect the rights of trans students and threatened to withhold federal funding for states that uphold those policies. In California, that could mean a loss of about $8 billion, or 7% of the overall education budget.

But beyond financial matters, the anti-LGBTQ language is likely to exacerbate challenges for trans students, Rogers said. Students’ rights to use bathrooms and play on sports teams that align with their gender identity are among the protections that Republicans have singled out for elimination.   

“This election proved that the culturally divisive rhetoric can be an effective way to garner public support,” Rogers said. “Now that Trump has a bully pulpit, I expect we’ll see an amplification of this rhetoric.”

Mike Kirst, former president of the State Board of Education, agreed that the threat of deportations may be Trump’s biggest effect on California schools. 

“If they succeed in deporting a lot of families, that will be horrific for California schools,” Kirst said. “That’s what keeps me up at night.”

More power to the states?

The other proposals — dismantling the U.S. Department of Education, or eliminating “woke” curriculum, for example — would be complicated and time-consuming to accomplish, he said. Eliminating the Department of Education would require majority votes in Congress, which would be a difficult hurdle because the department provides many popular programs with bipartisan support, such as special education.

Curriculum is left to the states, and the federal government has no input.

Traditionally, Republican presidents have sought to minimize the federal government’s role in education, leaving most decisions to the states. If Trump takes that approach, California’s mostly Democratic leadership would have some independence from the Republican power brokers in Washington, D.C., Kirst said.  

Regardless, Trump would be able to use executive orders to scale back Title I, which provides benefits to low-income students, and Title IX, which prohibits gender discrimination. And school choice, school vouchers and promotion of charter schools are likely to be priorities of the incoming Secretary of Education, although it’s not clear how much impact those policies would have in California.

Trump has also been outspoken in his opposition to teachers unions, saying he wants to eliminate tenure and institute merit pay.

The California Teachers Association, which campaigned heavily for Vice President Kamala Harris, said it was undeterred by Trump’s attacks.

“We are prepared to stand up against any attacks on our students, public education, workers’ rights and our broader communities that may come,” union president David Goldberg said. “We’re committed to fight for the future we all deserve.”

In a rare display of unity, Los Angeles Unified board members and union leaders also vowed to push back against any policies that would negatively affect students and families.

“We stand together in our commitment to protect, affirm and support everyone in the Los Angeles Unified community,” the groups released in a joint statement. “We will always provide a safe, welcoming and inclusive environment for all students, families and employees.”

State leaders fight back

At the state level, elected officials said they’d fight Trump’s efforts to interfere in California. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond on Friday said he’d ask the governor to backfill any funds the federal government withholds from California, and he’d sponsor legislation to protect students.

He also reminded school districts that laws already exist to protect undocumented and LGBTQ students. , passed this year, bans school staff from “outing” students to their families. And , a 1982 U.S. Supreme Court case, prohibits schools from denying students an education based on their immigration status. The state offers a plethora of guidance on how schools can support  and  students and their families. 

“While others demonize education, we will continue to help California students, wherever they are,” Thurmond said.

Attorney General Rob Bonta vowed to fight Trump’s policies with legal action, much as his predecessor Xavier Becerra did by filing or joining more than 100 lawsuits during the first Trump term. Gov. Gavin Newsom last week said he’d work with the Legislature to  and otherwise “” California.

Students, meanwhile, are waiting to see how the policies — and pushback — will play out in the coming months. Maria Davila, a high school senior in Beaumont in Riverside County, said that for now, she’s not overly worried about how a Trump presidency would affect schools. Some of her peers are concerned, she said, but she has faith that student activism and adult leadership will protect young people from the most extreme outcomes.

“In California we have legislative leaders who listen to students and care about young people,” said Davila, a volunteer with a youth advocacy group called GenUp. “I think we’ll get the support we need. Students can be hopeful.”

This was originally published on .

​​“During my time in school I noticed that some of the Black girls would get in trouble for dress code even though their peers of a different body shape would not get in trouble for wearing the same thing.”

“From being in school, it always seemed to me that Black girls were always the ones who got disciplined. Not saying White girls never got disciplined, but maybe they were given a little more wiggle room for error unlike the other Black girls.”

These were some of the observations young women shared with the researchers of a new U.S. Government Accountability Office , which found that Black girls in public schools face more and harsher forms of discipline when compared to other girls. While it’s long been known that Black female students are disproportionately punished in school, the GAO report determined that removals from class were happening to Black girls for similar behaviors as white girls and in the same schools. This points to the disparity being more about how Black girls are treated in school than how they act.

“This damning new report affirms what we’ve known all along — that Black girls continue to face a crisis of criminalization in our schools,” U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley said at a press conference last month unveiling the findings. “And the report provides powerful new data to push back on the harmful narrative that Black girls are disciplined more because they misbehave more.”

Pressley, a Massachusetts Democrat, is hoping the GAO report that she commissioned with House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi and fellow congresswoman Rosa DeLauro can drive a legislative remedy to end racial disparities in the disciplining of Black girls. She told the that she realizes the a bill she re-introduced in April, stands little chance while Republicans control the House, but that states can take the findings and move on their own to address the inequity. 

While Black girls represented 15% of all girls in public schools, they received almost half of all suspensions and expulsions during the 2017-18 school year, including 45% of out-of-school suspensions, 37% of in-school suspensions and 43% of expulsions. 

Black girls received exclusionary discipline at rates 3 to 5.2 times that of white girls. This pattern held true in every state and most drastically in the District of Columbia, where the out-of-school suspension rate for Black girls was 20.5 times the rate for white girls. These disparities were felt even more harshly by Black girls with disabilities, who were more likely to be removed from school than both Black girls without disabilities and white girls who were also disabled. 

Exclusionary discipline can result in both short- and long-term negative outcomes for students, according to the report, not only disciplinary outcomes but also the preceding behaviors.

While previous GAO work demonstrated racial disparities in K-12 discipline, a dearth in data meant that researchers couldn’t establish whether that inequity remained across similar behaviors. This time, though, researchers were able to use an additional national data set — the School-Wide Information System — which tracks infractions and associated discipline across 5,356 schools in 48 states alongside U.S. Department of Education Civil Rights Data. 

This filled a “big gap in the research,” according to Jackie Nowicki, the report’s lead researcher and a director on the GAO’s Education, Workforce, and Income Security team. “That was huge for us,” she said, “because — as far as we know — that kind of research has never been done before.”

Nowicki said she hopes people will understand the results are, “not an opinion. It’s not a hypothesis. This is serious, robust, objective, non-partisan analysis from nationwide data.”

The report also included an analysis of 26 empirical studies, data from the National Crime Victimization Survey and 31 responses to an anonymous questionnaire circulated to women ages 18-24 this year by the national organization,

Through this work, researchers identified multiple forms of bias that contributed to discipline disparities, including colorism and adultification, a form of racial prejudice in which kids of color are perceived as older, less innocent and more threatening. One study included in their review found that Black girls with the darkest skin tone were twice as likely to be suspended as white girls, which didn’t hold true for Black girls with lighter skin complexions.

Researchers also found that Black girls reported feeling less safe at and connected to their schools than their peers, factors which can impact both attendance and academic performance.

Amid a mental health crisis that is harming young girls in particular, “this is a really important piece of that overarching picture about how girls see themselves, how they experience the world, and what they take with them into their [adult] lives after they’ve left K-12 school settings,” Nowicki said.

To combat these issues, Pressley’s legislation would provide grants to states and schools that commit to banning discriminatory discipline practices, work to strengthen the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights and establish a federal task force to study and eliminate these practices. 

Rohini Singh, director of the School Justice Project at Advocates for Children of New York, said she is optimistic that with increased awareness from reports such as this one, those on the ground, like school deans or administrators, will “check themselves” before doling out consequences.

The report will also be helpful in implementing solutions, she said. Often in New York she hears debates about how to keep schools safe: “What that means for a lot of people is more police in schools, more discipline, more suspensions. It’s becoming clearer through reports like this — and data that we have — that that’s not necessarily the case … oftentimes students can feel less safe because they can be targeted.”

Nowicki shares Pressley’s skepticism that the necessary action will happen at the federal level and her hope that the report can drive reforms locally.

“The kind of change that needs to happen here is going to happen school by school, building by building, individual by individual, by people who realize that this is a systemic issue shown in the data, and that we all can be part of this solution if we choose to be.”

This was the enduring insight of E.D. Hirsch Jr., whose 1987 best-seller  argued that there is a common body of knowledge, including names, phrases, historical events and cultural references, that “every American needs to know” in order to effectively communicate, navigate the world and be fully literate. 

Like the Texas curriculum, Hirsch’s book met with and was deeply misunderstood. Critics accused Hirsch of seeking to impose a dead white male canon on schools. But these criticisms missed his central and unassailable point: Words, phrases and ideas from history, literature, mythology and, yes, the Bible form the bedrock of much of English speakers’ linguistic heritage. Without complete command of these references, students — particularly poor, minority and immigrant students — will struggle to fully comprehend what they read, no matter how well they can decode the words on the page.

This distinction between decoding and reading comprehension is critical. The long-running debate over how to teach children to read is often oversimplified to a battle between phonics and whole language. However, when children score poorly on reading tests, it’s often not because they can’t decode the words on the page; it’s because they have difficulty making sense of what they’re reading. Most people probably think of reading as a skill, like riding a bike: Once you learn, you can ride any bike. But it’s not so. Any given text is the tip of an iceberg. Beneath the surface is a vast body of vocabulary, background knowledge and context that enable the reader to make meaning. Well-educated people perceive reading comprehension as a skill because it feels like one. But like the proverbial fish that doesn’t know it’s in water, literate people are unconsciously awash in knowledge and vocabulary that they employ reflexively and on which language comprehension depends. 

I often compare a reading passage to the child’s game Jenga, where every block is a vocabulary word or a bit of background knowledge. You can pull out a few blocks and the tower still stands; pull out one too many, and it collapses. The same thing can happen when readers and listeners lack the rich array of mental furniture that writers and speakers draw from. Language comprehension suffers or can break down entirely.

This is where biblical allusions come into play. Everyday language is peppered with references to biblical stories and phrases, many of which are used by English speakers of all faiths — or none at all: Good Samaritan, prodigal son, forbidden fruit, pearls before swine and countless others. Scrubbing biblical references from school curriculum may seem like a step toward inclusivity, but given how deeply such phrases and allusion are embedded in the language, such an effort would more likely impose a form of illiteracy on students, leaving them unprepared to engage with the world around them and at risk of a lifetime of verbal disadvantage. 

It’s equally important to recognize that no curriculum is handed down to teachers on tablets of stone and delivered robotically. “Most teachers do not use a single curriculum as it is written,” reported the RAND Corporation in its annual . “Instead, they reported using multiple curricula, making substantial modifications, or creating their own

curriculum materials.” According to RAND, 99% of elementary school teachers and 96% of secondary school teachers rely on material they create or select to teach English language arts. Frankly, this poses an even bigger challenge for classrooms in Texas and across the country. Teachers, often pressed for time and resources, tend to select materials that what their students are capable of learning. The language and knowledge-rich Texas curriculum is a significant improvement over what’s available on the most commonly used lesson-planning websites, such as Share My Lesson and Teachers Pay Teachers, which one study as “mediocre” or “probably not worth using.” 

Given the way classroom materials are actually deployed, it makes little sense to reject an entire curriculum over objections to a small number of individual lessons. That said, the Texas Education Agency shared with me a 22-page letter it sent to the board detailing modifications already made to the curriculum in response to criticisms made over the summer during the public comment period, many of which were repeated at the hearing.

Some speakers there also voiced concerns about a perceived over-reliance on reading aloud in the proposed curriculum. But this, too, misses the mark. Listening comprehension outpaces reading comprehension well into a child’s middle school years. In other words, children can understand complex texts when they are read aloud long before they can read them just as well on their own. Read-alouds are a crucial tool for building vocabulary and background knowledge until reading comprehension catches up with listening comprehension.

In short, the concerns over the new curriculum’s inclusion of Bible stories, while understandable, are largely misplaced. What’s at stake is not the promotion of Christianity but the cultivation of cultural literacy, an essential component of reading comprehension and academic success. If parents, policymakers and other education stakeholders want students to be fully literate, able to understand the world of ideas they will encounter in literature, conversation and the wider world, they must be furnished with the common knowledge that educated people take for granted. Removing these references from the curriculum and public education at large does a disservice to students, leaving them at a disadvantage not just in school, but in life.

Reading outcomes for American children are a source of national shame and a root cause of many of the country’s deep-seated issues and injustices. In the of U.S. fourth graders, only one-third were proficient in reading. These results reflect a longstanding problem with grave social consequences, a reality the Department of Justice recognized when it illiteracy a causal factor in delinquent behavior and incarceration more than 30 years ago.

The NAACP has been increasingly vocal about poor literacy outcomes. It passed a in 2014 and recently led a , but its new resolutions are particularly pointed. While they are not heavily prescriptive, their message is clear: Literacy is a civil right, and progress is a moral imperative. Children cannot read, and the culprit is the “widespread neglect of implementing evidence-based practices” in how literacy skills are taught. The resolutions call for “accountability and monitoring” of instructional practices as well as better training to ensure “teaching methods grounded in research-proven effectiveness” are implemented in all schools. The NAACP also calls on policymakers to “be aware of research-based strategies and use them in their policies.”

As local NAACP branches must uphold national resolutions, this work can begin immediately within the states. In recent years, , and have pushed for reform, yet change has been slow to reach classrooms, both in elementary schools and in universities. As I consider the continued barriers to progress, I believe the NAACP — and peer civil rights organizations including Children’s Defense Fund, Alliance for Excellent Education and National Urban League — are uniquely poised to dismantle them. 

Politics, for example, has been a notable obstacle to change. Structured literacy instruction was once considered a conservative cause, and while it has become a big-tent issue, many partisans cannot resist coloring it red or blue. This reflects the general atmosphere of American society — deeply divided by politics — but given the stakes, literacy advocates must call for a cease and desist of any form of politicization in the movement to improve reading instruction. The NAACP’s stance can help depoliticize conversations about reading instruction, as it joins standard-bearers from to the , from dyslexia advocates to houses of worship and from those living in poverty to those in the wealthiest zip codes in advancing change. 

At the university level, professors of education have long been arming teachers with methods that simply do not work for the majority of students. While the National Center on Teaching Quality has on this issue, many universities have ignored these critiques in the name of academic freedom. The NAACP takes teaching colleges to task, calling for an “evidence-based professional education system.” Leaders can — and must — ask universities why they are complicit in civil rights violations when they fail to hold their education departments accountable. These institutes of higher education should not be designated unless they align their programs and methods courses with the research consensus.��

NAACP activism also pressures education funders, particularly the federal government, to take initiative for better reading outcomes. Why should any school that receives federal funding — including public schools via the Title I program — be allowed to perpetuate civil rights violations by failing to use research-validated approaches to teach reading? Certainly, the U.S. Department of Education could institute corrective measures. Public or philanthropic funding could also address key voids in research and training. Educators deserve access to major research efforts to help them understand which curricula are most effective and usable in schools. Teachers should not be paying for professional development out of their own pockets to make up for training that was not current with the research. If America can spend billions of dollars overseas to fund wars, surely our leaders can find the money needed to ensure our children can read.

Lastly, NAACP advocacy may finally compel change in the unregulated K-12 product marketplace. Major publishers continue to put , with little accountability as to whether their materials actually help teach children to read. State departments of education create curriculum lists without considering which have evidence of working best, and how much time and preparation is required for full implementation of materials. School systems, at all levels, must demand effective, highly usable products that empower teachers, not salespeople.

Society has established that the profit motive must not override civil and human rights, a principle affirmed by decisions to end slavery, create child labor laws and codify access to a free and appropriate public education. The right to read belongs in that same pantheon of liberties. As Maya Angelou put it, “The elimination of illiteracy is as serious an issue to our history as the abolition of slavery.” By demanding important changes in American education, the NAACP brings its powerful pulpit to bear in heeding Angelou’s call.

The El Salvadorian mother of three, who primarily speaks Spanish, struggled to communicate with teachers, administrators and district leaders. She made repeated requests for the interpretation services that she — and all public school parents who don’t speak English fluently — are legally entitled to.

In most of her exchanges with the school, Rodas said she wasn’t even offered access to a phone translation service. If she ever needed to inform them of something like an absence or a kid running late, she had to rely on her older son to translate. 

This reached a fever pitch in the fall of 2022, when Rodas’s daughter, then a 5th grader in South Kansas City, told her mom that two kids at school “were touching her inappropriately in her private parts.” When Rodas contacted the school to report this, they initially provided her with a phone interpreter, she said, but as the situation escalated over the next few months, communication dwindled.

At a meeting with district leaders to discuss the assault allegation and the attacks on her daughter that Rodas said took place afterward, the mom said she was denied any school-provided interpretation services.

“I felt powerless, not being able to say what I wanted to say, how I wanted to say it, in the manner and moment that I wanted to say it,” Rodas said in a translated interview with ����Ӱ��. “And it also made me feel bad. There were a lot of times that I felt … if I was not like them — because I can’t speak the language — that I didn’t belong there. I felt ignored.”

Rodas’s experiences are not unique, according to interviews with over a dozen parents, advocates, lawyers and academic experts, along with a review of national data. Parents and families who speak a language other than English are frequently denied access to communication from their child’s school in their primary language, often turning to Google translate, their own kid or a bilingual staff member who isn’t a trained interpreter for issues as simple as their child being absent for a day or as complex and intimidating as a special education meeting or a school disciplinary hearing.

All of this can lead to a breakdown in trust between families and schools and harmful consequences for students — and it’s happening all the time in districts across the country, advocates say.

“It’s such a prevalent issue that everybody knows about it,” said Nancy Leon, director of the D.C.-based immigration advocacy organization — Many Languages, One Voice. “It’s unspoken. It’s expected. So sometimes it’s something parents don’t even bring up to us because it just happens so frequently.”

It’s challenging to pin down just how widespread the problem is because a number of parents don’t know that they’re legally entitled to these services, advocates say, and those who do know their rights are often afraid to report violations or unaware of how to tackle that process. Others still may feel embarrassed to request the services, viewing their status as shameful or a burden.

Another Missouri mom told ����Ӱ�� that she marked on enrollment papers that she needed an interpreter, but then when her son got hurt at school one day, was put on the phone with someone whose Spanish was so poor that she just told them to speak to her in English.

One measure of the extent of the problem is the number of times children are called on to interpret for their parents at school. Tricia McGhee, director of communications at Midwest-based said they put that question to kids when the advocacy group is doing programming with Spanish-speaking families.

When they ask, “‘Have you ever been [an] interpreter for your mom?’ They all raise their hand,” she said. “Every last one of them.’”

Countless examples

This year marks the 60th anniversary of The Civil Rights Act, which granted families the legal right to interpretation and translation services from public K-12 schools under Title VI.

Unlike for and interpreters, there is no national certification for education interpreters, though one is in the works, according to Ana Soler, chairperson at the This leaves those in education largely unregulated, which means that even when parents do get an interpreter, they might not have sufficient training or expertise. And, they’re frequently accessed through a phone service, described by some as “check-off-the-box” language access.

In 2023, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights received about 3,500 complaint allegations raising Title VI issues. Of those, only were related to communication with parents who don’t speak English fluently. They ranged from a child in Colorado denied access to free and reduced-price lunch — and later fined — because of miscommunication to a Rhode Island district’s widespread use of untrained interpreters and translators. The previous year, there were even fewer communication-based complaints filed: just .

But experts, advocates and parents assert that these numbers represent a sliver of the problem.

“We have seen countless examples of schools not providing interpretation at meetings, of parents going to schools and being told that there isn’t anybody there who speaks their language and so they should come back at another time,” said Rita Rodriguez-Engberg, director of the Immigrant Students’ Rights Project at .

“Whenever we hear about an example in a school, we know that there are probably dozens of parents who have gone through the same thing at that school because we’re lucky enough to get the one parent to tell us about it,” she added. 

The legal standard: ‘A very tricky balance’

In 2021, just over of K-12 students nationally were English learners. In some states the percentage of children whose parents are not fluent in English can be even higher, ranging from 33% in California to nearly none in Montana, according to And in 2021, about of school-age children spoke a language other than English at home and about 4% also lived in “limited-English-speaking households.”

The 2023 , which surveyed 980 families, the vast majority of whom identified as Latino with kids who are English learners, reported almost 60% of parents being at least somewhat concerned about the lack of access to translation or interpretation services at school.

In January 2015, the departments of Justice and Education released outlining what these services should look like: Schools must communicate with parents in a language they understand and are prohibited from asking “the child, other students or untrained school staff to translate or interpret.”

Interpreters and translators must have knowledge of specialized terms in both languages and must be trained in the role, including the ethics of interpreting and translating. The document clearly establishes, “it is not sufficient for the staff merely to be bilingual.” 

It’s important that families understand “this is not a favor they’re doing for you,” said Soler. “They need to provide you with language access that is quality language access — not just anybody that speaks a little bit of one language so that they can fulfill their requirements.”

Despite their legal heft, these provisions are often misunderstood or flagrantly violated, experts and parents told ����Ӱ��. And some argue the guidance doesn’t go far enough.

“Quite frankly, the verbiage is left up to interpretation,” said Revolución Educativa’s McGhee. “So if I were passing laws, I would be much more specific about the requirements.”

The standard is not completely clear when it comes to school staff who are multilingual serving as interpreters, said Paige Duggins-Clay, chief legal analyst at the Texas-based so “it’s a very tricky balance.” 

And when these rights are not sufficiently met — and parents are hobbled in their efforts to advocate for their children — the consequences can be deeply harmful to both students and families. 

“Having a really engaged caregiver is critically important to the success of any young person,” said Duggins-Clay, “but especially a young person who might be new to the school community or might be learning to speak English and integrating into the broader school community.”

Often schools and districts claim interpretation and translation services are expensive and budgets are tight or they don’t have access to certain languages locally, said Alejandra Vázquez Baur, a fellow at , a progressive think tank based in New York City. 

But, she said, these are all barriers that can be overcome. 

Schools have also increasingly struggled to recruit and retain bilingual educators, though Vázquez Baur, who is bilingual and a former teacher, again emphasized that merely speaking another language is not enough.

When she taught in Florida’s Miami-Dade County between 2017-19, she said she was frequently relied on to translate and interpret for families. 

At the time, Vázquez Baur said, “I did not realize that them calling me down for parent-teacher conferences for other teachers and calling parents for all the different things was against their right.”

Superintendents and school leaders across the country want to fulfill their legal obligation and communicate effectively with their parents, but are often thwarted by an “implementation gap,” according to John Malloy, the assistant executive director for the Learning Network at and a former superintendent in California.

The challenge comes from both pipeline and funding issues, he said: “There’s a lack of professionals to fulfill that [legal] obligation, and then there’s a lack of dollars to pay those professionals.”

The problem is endemic, he added, noting, “I think you’d be hard pressed to find a district — even in the face of our legal obligations — who isn’t struggling [with this].”

In order to combat it, Malloy said, schools will require increased state and federal funding. 

“Too often in my experience — whether we’re talking special education, whether we’re talking Title IX, whether we’re talking this important and legal requirement related to access — we’re stretching dollars in multiple ways,” the former superintendent of 15 years said. “And at the end of the day, we are expected to do something that we might not actually have the resources to provide no matter how hard we try.” 

Until then, school leaders will continue to rely on other strategies, such as family members or untrained bilingual staff, according to Malloy.

The school principal of a rural, low-income district in Eastern North Carolina told ����Ӱ�� that he was able to hire a front office secretary who is both bilingual and a trained interpreter.

“But most people aren’t that lucky,” said Patrick Greene, who is in his 12th year as principal in Greene County Schools, a district of 2,700 students. 

Finding a trained, bilingual staff member was important to him because his student population is now about a third Latino, with only one designated interpreter for the entire district. Greene said he was forced to schedule “more official” meetings, such as disciplinary hearings, around that lone staffer’s schedule.

“He stays very busy,” he said.

All of the great details are just gone

Alejandra, who moved from Mexico to Missouri two decades ago, gave birth to her son Danny three years after that. Described by his mother as a bright, hyperactive kid, Danny was in third grade when he was badly injured on the monkey bars at school. 

Alejandra requested only her first name and her son’s nickname be used because she feared retaliation from her son’s school district.

After Danny walked himself to the nurse’s office that day — and after the initial interpreter spoke such poor Spanish that Alejandra told her to switch to English — it was the little boy himself who had to explain the fraught situation to his mom.

“It was very frustrating,” she added, “because they ended up using my child as the interpreter.” 

This experience was not new, nor has it changed in the years since. Alejandra said that in general, when her kids were in elementary school, the school would make an interpreter available, but only if she scheduled an appointment ahead of time. 

“In middle school, there are no interpreters. You have to bring your own person that will help you. And for high school? Definitely not.”

In general, even when interpretation has been provided, she described it as subpar and largely unhelpful, marked by translators who cross boundaries, interjecting their views into conversations in ways that she said were inappropriate and ultimately hurt her son.

“Oftentimes, what I’ve experienced is that when they’re part of the district, they insert themselves in the situation,” she said. “Their own bias comes in, they give their own opinions, and then they get in the way of the proper communication that should just be a bridge between one party and the other.”

It’s often in the face of these deficiencies that the student gets called on to translate. Not only is this a violation of the law, but also makes families feel disconnected from their schools and leads to an adultification of children, said Daysi Ximena Diaz-Strong, an assistant professor at the University of Chicago’s School of Social Work.

“It creates a kind of interesting family dynamic of parents wanting to support their kids, but having these sort of structural constraints, which then forces the kids to take on more responsibility within the home.”

She said as someone who grew up as an immigrant and took on these responsibilities herself, “It stays with you all the way through adulthood. You just know that you … are responsible for your family’s well-being and that you must take on that burden at any expense — including your own.”

Sometimes, students are even pulled to be translators for their peers, according to Hannah Liu, a policy analyst at the in D.C.

It’s not just an individual school issue, she said, “it’s a very widespread issue. And I think that’s something that’s been normalized in the immigrant child experience … We need to denormalize and say, ‘OK, actually, we are not supporting our kids enough.’”

McGhee, of Revolución Educativa, said unless translation is requested in advance, it’s typically not available and even when established advocacy groups like hers make the ask, often it’s still not provided. What happens then, she said, is administrators will pull in someone like a bilingual secretary to fill the gap.

“If the student is a middle schooler or above, they are doing all their own interpretation,” she said.

McGhee said she once sat in on an emotionally charged disciplinary hearing for an English learner facing expulsion. His mom didn’t speak English, so the school ultimately brought in a young, bilingual staff member who worked in the front office but had no training in interpretation. 

As the meeting intensified, the staff member grew increasingly emotional and began to cry. McGhee said she turned to her and offered to take over.

McGhee said she’s also witnessed meetings where bilingual staff members are burned out and frustrated after being repeatedly asked to do this work and therefore do the bare minimum. 

Christy Moreno, community advocacy and impact officer at Revolución Educativa and a trained language access provider, emphasized the harm that is done when this happens. Moreno interpreted the parent interviews for this article.

“Oftentimes what I see and what I experience and what I hear about is meetings where when the information is translated into their language of preference, it’s summarized,” she said. “So all of the great detail, all of the very important things that need to be taken into consideration when families are making decisions about the educational experience of their children, are just gone. And so they’re disenfranchised. Someone else is making decisions for them without their true input and ultimately that impacts their student, the child.”

She’s even seen cases in which legal documents, such as are translated using Google: “I’ve seen it many times, literally printed on the IEP where the top corner says ‘Translated by Google Translate.’”

“It’s not really a system that’s working,” said Rodriguez-Engberg, from Advocates for Children. “The problem is that there are resources and there is guidance and there’s definitely a little bit of oversight, it’s just that I’m not sure the schools are actually being held accountable.” 

Unlike federal laws that protect students with disabilities, she added, the enforcement mechanisms just aren’t very robust.

“I want people to know my story”

Wendy Rodas said her daughter was hospitalized in December 2022 as a result of being victimized in her Missouri school, and that her son was forced to translate a challenging conversation between his mother and the school principal about his younger sister’s traumatizing experiences.

Eventually, frustrated by the school’s lack of response, Rodas involved Child Protective Services and requested a meeting with the principal, superintendent and director of student services. She also requested an interpreter be present.

At this point, a skeptical Rodas also elicited outside help from Revolución Educativa. On the morning of the meeting, the interpreter she had requested from the school wasn’t there, she said. A staff member in the session tried unsuccessfully to access one on the phone. Finally, the Revolución Educativa advocate, a trained interpreter, stepped in.

For the first time, Rodas said, “I felt like I was finally able to say everything I wanted to say.” 

Rodas said she never saw the outcome of the investigation into what happened to her daughter. But in the year and a half since, the young girl has been healing through therapy and has transferred to another public school in the district, one that consistently offers translation through a phone interpreter, her mother said. This is better than nothing, but still feeling disconnected, Rodas continues to rely on outside services and volunteers. 

Rodas is hoping for change — ideally a bilingual staffer is assigned at each school to facilitate communication between educators and families. And while reliving her daughter’s story is painful, she said she shares it to encourage other non-English-speaking parents to fight and advocate for their kids.

“I want people to know my story so that they can know that if they have the courage … they can make change. I want people to have that courage so that they can speak up, so that they can go and find answers and say what they want to say. And I want them to know that it is possible to get effective communication — we just need to push and ask for it.”

Maud Maron, who New York City Schools removed for “derogatory conduct” in June, can now resume her post on lower Manhattan’s coveted District 2 council. She has also been criticized for making anti-transgender comments against students.��

In her ruling, federal judge Diane Gujarati also deemed the New York City Department of Education’s  anti-harassment policy — which was used to remove Maron — “chilled … expression” and likely violates the First Amendment because of its vague language.

The policy, D-210, is so unclear that it prevents “a person of ordinary intelligence – before such person is subject to investigation” from understanding what conduct is prohibited, the judge wrote.

Schools Chancellor David Banks removed Maron for comments made in the New York Post in which she called an anonymous Stuyvesant High School student author a “coward” and accused them of “Jew hatred” for an op-ed accusing Israel of genocide in Palestine in the student paper.

In December, a 74 investigation revealed Maron also said in a private chat that, “there is no such thing as trans kids,” among other disparaging remarks. In response, Banks called Maron’s behavior “despicable” but did not include the anti-trans comments in documents outlining her removal. 

In a text, Maron told ����Ӱ�� Wednesday she was reinstated because, “free speech still means something in this country. The people who voted for me won today because they were also deprived of their voice by the Chancellor’s unconstitutional decision.”

The judge’s decision was issued after Maron and two other parents sued the Department of Education, the education council for District 14 and its leadership for allegedly stifling their speech. Gujarti’s decision granted an injunction to stop the DOE from enforcing the anti-discrimination policy via removing council members. Their .

Department of Education officials said Gujarati’s decision makes it more difficult to safeguard children. 

“We are disappointed by a ruling that limits our ability to protect students from harmful conduct by parent leaders. Even prior to the court’s ruling, we began reviewing the applicable Chancellor’s regulation and are preparing to propose revisions and initiate our public engagement process,” said spokesman Nathaniel Styer. 

The department, Styer added, is reviewing the ruling for “next steps” and will continue to support district councils in complying with the law. 

Gujarati’s ruling did not call for the reinstatement of Tajh Sutton, who is the only other parent to be removed from a district council post after a D-210 investigation, because it is a separate case. Gujarati’s ruling stated that there is no proper request before the Court to “identically extend” Maron’s relief to Sutton and therefore “is not addressed herein.” 

Sutton, formerly president of Williamsburg’s District 14 council, was removed after their official X account posted a toolkit for a student walkout for a ceasefire in Gaza.  DOE officials said the materials were “perceived by many community members as anti-Israel and antisemitic.” 

As also reported by the , Sutton moved her district’s meetings online to limit threats – which included being mailed an envelope of human feces and death threats –  which the department later said violated open meeting laws. CEC 14’s official X account also blocked Maron. Both actions were categorized in Gujarati’s ruling as limiting free speech. 

Ultimately, “the judge upheld the right to free speech even if that speech is offensive,” said David Bloomfield, former DOE counsel and professor of education law with Brooklyn College and the City University of New York Graduate Center. 

He added the ruling doesn’t justify the “odious” statements made, rather their right to be said in the first place, and that the system likely knew this was a possibility but would “rather be slapped down by a court than allow [Maron’s] behavior to persist.” 

“The First Amendment guarantees a marketplace of ideas,” Bloomfield said. “When the government intrudes on that, it’s hard to defend.” 

Lawyers for Civil Rights and Massachusetts Advocates for Children filed Sept. 18 against Saugus Public Schools seeking the release of records around the district’s admissions policy. The legal advocates claim the policy, which mandates that families fill out the town census among other requirements, disproportionately affects immigrant and other vulnerable student groups. Saugus district officials did not respond to a request for comment.

Just weeks after Massachusetts attorneys flagged two school districts for allegedly denying newcomer students their legal right to an education, researchers examining Oregon and Michigan state data found that English learners were less likely than other students to be enrolled in the core classes they need to graduate. 

Both of these issues were called out in a June undercover investigation by ����Ӱ�� that revealed rampant enrollment discrimination against older immigrant students. These newer findings show many such barriers remain in various parts of the country. 

Boston-based and asked the state attorney general’s office on Aug. 28 to investigate Saugus Public Schools for practices they say single out immigrant children: The school system currently bars entry to students whose families did not complete the annual town census. 

While local census data collection is in Massachusetts, lawyers say it can’t be tied to student enrollment. 

“With school starting in Saugus this week and the School Committee digging in its heels, it is imperative that the Attorney General intervene,” Erika Richmond Walton, an attorney with Lawyers for Civil Rights, said in a statement last week. “No child in Massachusetts should be denied the right to an education based on exclusionary policies.” 

In an earlier interview, attorneys said that the district also applies overly-stringent residency and proof-of-identity requirements that make it difficult for children — especially immigrants — to register, violating their rights under federal and state law. 

The attorney general’s office said in a statement that “it is in touch with the Saugus School District regarding their school admissions policy,” noting that “federal and state law gives all students equal access to a public education, regardless of immigration status.”

Saugus Public Schools, 11 miles north of Boston, served , up from 2,297 two years earlier. In the 2023-24 school year, English was not the first language of and 13% of students were   The district was in the 2022-23 school year, slightly higher than the state at 24.2%. 

����Ӱ��’s enrollment  investigation also found that some school personnel who were willing to admit an older immigrant student wanted to severely limit his participation, including allowing him to take only ESL classes. Researchers in Oregon looked at the practice they call in their own state and Michigan. 

Analyzing statewide data from the 2013-14 to 2018-19 school years, they found that just 55% of English learners in Oregon were enrolled in all the required core classes compared to 69% of those students who had graduated from the English learner program and 67% who were never enrolled in it.

In Michigan, 66% of English learners were enrolled in all of the core classes compared to 71% of former English learner students and those who were never enrolled in the program, according to the most recently available statewide data from the 2011-12 to 2014-15 school years. Under , public schools must ensure that English learners can “participate meaningfully and equally in educational programs,” including having access to grade-level curricula so they can be promoted and graduate.

Researchers said race and socioeconomics were critical factors in exclusionary tracking, noting that English learners in Oregon were more likely to take standalone English language development classes and live in poverty than those in Michigan. 

“The scope of the problem is pretty large,” said Ilana Umansky, an associate professor at the University of Oregon who co-wrote the report. “It’s so important that kids can get through high school and graduate with a regular diploma.”

Immigrant advocate Adam Strom called the actions in all three states an outrage.

​​”Exclusionary tracking and denial of registration for immigrant students not only violate their legal rights,” he said, “but also rob the entire school community of the rich cultural and intellectual contributions these students offer.”

Unwelcome to America

Senior reporter Jo Napolitano spent nearly a year and a half calling 630 high schools around the country trying to enroll a 19-year-old newcomer whose education had been interrupted after the ninth grade. Napolitano posed as the student’s aunt and told schools “Hector Guerrero” had recently arrived in their district from Venezuela with limited English skills. 

Hector was turned away 330 times, including more than 200 denials in the 35 states and the District of Columbia where he had a legal right to attend based on his age.

Those who refused our test student predicted that he would not graduate, a factor that should not have played a part in such a decision, several state education department officials said. Thirteen states and three major cities have now said they are taking action to bolster newcomer students’ educational rights as a result of ����Ӱ��’s reporting.

Three schools in Massachusetts, where students have a right to attend until age 21, denied our test student and two more said they were likely to. Education officials there told ����Ӱ�� last month they would call those districts to discuss the findings, but planned no other statewide corrective measures.

Saugus schools Superintendent Michael Hashem’s secretary, Dianne Vargas, handles enrollment in the North Shore district. She told ����Ӱ�� last week that are lawful and that she’s in regular contact with the state education department and state attorney general’s office. 

She maintained that the requirement that “(f)amilies who move to Saugus must complete the Town of Saugus census” to be eligible to register their children is waived for incoming immigrant students and that the rules were in place before August 2023, when the attorneys say they were adopted.

But, she said, the district does require other forms of paperwork — all meant to protect these students’ welfare.

“We want to make sure they are with a parent or guardian — that they actually have someone who is caring for them so we don’t have doubling up and people aren’t passing children around,” she said. “We have a good amount of scattered living or sheltered students who are refugees or migrants and they cannot be left without guardianship. We have a translator … we have everything up to date and make sure these people feel welcome.”

She said her office asks for — but does not require — a birth certificate and medical records. But Diana I. Santiago, a senior attorney and director at Massachusetts Advocates for Children, said Saugus’s enrollment policies effectively barred at least two immigrant families from enrolling their children in a timely manner, resulting in “substantial time” out of school. 

The enrollment policy warns that parents, guardians or any others who “violate or assist in violation of this policy by submitting false documentation, aiding, abetting or conspiring to admit a child as a student of Saugus Public Schools, shall be subject to all applicable criminal and civil penalties.” 

It also pledges that if a student’s family moves out of the district during the school year, that student’s “immigration records required by law, shall be transferred immediately to the school in the city or town where they are residing.”

It’s unclear why the district would be in possession of a student’s immigration records. Schools cannot, under federal law, turn away students based on their , although conservative forces are now looking  . At an Aug. 30 Moms for Liberty gathering, GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump said the country is “being poisoned” and that immigrant students are

Closing doors

Santiago described the language used throughout Saugus’s enrollment policy — including terms like “legal residents” and “immigration paperwork” — as coded and meant to target the city’s growing immigrant community. 

“It’s just inserted there as another way to try to keep students out, especially immigrant students,” she said. 

Massachusetts is generally considered a national leader in education. The state attorney general’s on its website said it’s critical they “ensure that all children residing in their jurisdictions have equal access to public education” by allowing them to enroll and attend school without regard to race, national origin, or immigration or citizenship status. They must also avoid information requests “that have the purpose or effect of discouraging or denying access to school” based on those factors.  

In another Bay State case that set off alarms in late July, Norfolk Town Administrator said a change in the state’s emergency shelter system meant children temporarily housed at one location “will not be enrolled in Norfolk Public Schools or the King Philip Regional School District.” After pushback from immigrant advocates, he . 

����Ӱ��’s investigation revealed a litany of ways that districts make enrollment arduous or unwelcoming for immigrant students. A principal in Green River, Wyoming, said our test student could be admitted but “wouldn’t get to participate in extracurriculars,” while a Caldwell, Idaho, principal said he would “maybe” allow him to enroll in math and science classes, but not English or history.

The Oregon researchers said the practice of keeping English learners out of core classes is significant and undermines , a pivotal 1974 Supreme Court case that requires districts to  

Umansky and co-author Karen D. Thompson, associate professor at Oregon State University, have researching educational inequity for English learners.

Thompson said exclusionary tracking goes against high schools’ mission to graduate students college and career ready. , they said, can boost student access. 

“We want students who are classified as English learners to be able to learn and thrive and have all of the opportunities they can,” she said. “If their access to core content is restricted, some future doors might be closed to them.”