School Programs to Aid Black Students Under Increased Scrutiny as ‘Illegal DEI’ Under Trump

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But under the Trump administration, efforts to address deep-rooted inequities for students of color are being cast as discriminatory against white students. Programs that have long withstood legal scrutiny are now quick to be deemed “illegal DEI” — diversity, equity and inclusion — by the White House. Schools that do not comply have faced threats to their funding and, in some cases, lost federal grants.

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The administration has opened investigations or joined litigation over a wide range of efforts to address racial inequality. President Trump’s Justice Department is investigating programs to increase the number of teachers of color in Rhode Island and Iowa. Grants to districts to train teachers or recruit school mental health workers have been discontinued for mentions of diversity in recruitment.

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The administration investigated Chicago Public Schools and withheld more than $20 million when the district refused to end its Black Student Success Program, which aims to increase access to advanced coursework for Black students and reduce overly harsh discipline.

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A similar effort to close racial achievement gaps in Los Angeles is under the same pressure.

The Los Angeles Unified School District program, approved and funded by the Board of Education in 2021, added school staff including a psychiatric social worker, an attendance counselor, a parent or community representative and an academic counselor specifically to help Black students, who make up 7% of the district’s students.

Initially, the district chose schools partially based on the number of Black students enrolled. In 2023, Defending Education, a Virginia-based conservative group, filed a complaint to the Education Department, alleging discrimination against non-Black students. The district said it would no longer consider Black enrollment and instead focus solely on metrics such as high absenteeism and low test scores, emphasizing that all students could take part.

After the changes, the Education Department in 2024 said it saw no evidence of a violation. But when Defending Education filed its complaint again this year, the department’s Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation.

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The pivot in the federal government’s approach to civil rights in schools has taken several forms under Trump.

The Justice Department has released school districts from court-ordered desegregation plans dating to the Civil Rights Movement, describing them as outdated and burdensome. The Education Department has stripped funding from some districts that used it to create magnet schools intended to be more diverse.

In correspondence discouraging districts’ diversity programs, the administration has repeatedly cited a broad interpretation of the Supreme Court’s ruling on affirmative action, which prevented colleges and universities from directly considering race in admissions.

While that ruling pertained only to admissions, the administration last winter notified schools that any differential treatment based on race was unconstitutional. A federal court struck down that guidance last year, but advocates say schools may still preemptively end equity programs to avoid drawing federal scrutiny.

In Los Angeles, the Justice Department has tried to end another racial equity effort.

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In January, the conservative 1776 Project Foundation filed a lawsuit challenging the designation, describing it as “a program of overt discrimination against a new minority: White students.” The next month, the Justice Department filed its own complaint and asked to join the lawsuit.

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