Some Programs for Black Students Become ‘Illegal D.E.I.’ Under Trump

Chicago is a testing ground for some of the left’s biggest ideas about race and education. School systems in the city and nearby suburbs are pushing to hire more Black male teachers, add more Black history and train teachers in concepts like white privilege.

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Now, school districts with programs aimed at lifting up Black students, and others, are finding themselves legally vulnerable. The White House is pursuing a reversal of the federal government’s traditional role on race and schools, going after what it calls “illegal D.E.I.,” or diversity, equity and inclusion. The administration is using the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, which was established to protect racial and ethnic minority groups, to try to end programs meant to help some of those same students.

Through executive orders, investigations and threats to cut funding, the government has put what was once a bipartisan movement to address the legacy of slavery and racism on the defensive. Even Republican-leaning states like Florida and Mississippi have teacher recruitment programs intended, in part, to diversify the work force — an idea the administration has called illegal affirmative action.

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Nowhere is the potential impact of this reversal starker than in Illinois. The Education Department has announced civil rights investigations into two of the state’s most prominent school systems, in Chicago and in the nearby college town of Evanston, accusing them of breaking the law by focusing school improvement efforts on nonwhite children.

Conservatives hope the cases against the two districts will set precedents that can reach into schools and other institutions nationally.

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This fall, Chicago Public Schools will roll out what it calls the Black Student Success Plan. It calls for doubling the number of Black male teachers hired by 2029, reducing disciplinary actions against Black students, adding more Black history and enrolling more Black children in advanced courses.

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In an April statement announcing the investigation, Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights at the Education Department, said that Chicago was reserving resources for “favored” students, and that the Trump administration “will not allow federal funds, provided for the benefit of all students, to be used in this pernicious and unlawful manner.”

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North of Chicago, District 65, which oversees elementary and middle schools in the diverse suburbs of Evanston and Skokie, has pursued similar racial equity efforts for years. It offers an Afrocentric magnet program and enrolled all students in eighth-grade Algebra I, previously an advanced course where Black and Hispanic students were underrepresented.

But it is a separate set of practices — antiracism training sessions for teachers — that have made the district a target of the Trump administration.

A white drama teacher in the school system, Stacy Deemar, has filed several legal complaints accusing her employer of creating a “racially charged environment,” in part by requiring staff members to participate in training focused on concepts such as white privilege and white fragility, sometimes in “affinity groups” segregated by race.

The Trump administration opened an investigation into the district in response to Dr. Deemar’s complaint. She is represented by the Southeastern Legal Foundation.

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