Several education associations have vowed not to comply with the Trump administration’s orders to halt diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts in K-12 and higher education.
In response to a Feb. 14 memo issued by the Department of Education demanding schools halt race-based decisions and other DEI initiatives or risk losing federal funding, the School Superintendents Association (AASA), which “serves as the national voice for public education” and is made up of school administrators from across the nation, advised school districts to ignore the guidance. Higher education groups, such as the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) as well as policy-advising organizations like the American Council on Education (ACE) and EdTrust, told institutions to “vigorously oppose the assault on our education” and disobey the department’s rule.
“To be abundantly clear, Dear Colleague letters are not law,” Ted Mitchell, president of ACE, said at a policy briefing Tuesday, according to Inside Higher Ed. “They are simply statements of intent by executive agencies about how they intend to interpret the law. And so overcompliance, anticipatory compliance, pre-emptive compliance, is not a strategy. The strategy needs to be much more considered, much more nuanced.”
The Education Department’s “Dear Colleague” letter from warned schools that any policy using “race-based preferences and other forms of racial discrimination” violates the Constitution and the Civil Rights Act and gave them two weeks to correct any programs. (RELATED: Trump’s Education Department Axes $600 Million In ‘Social Justice Activism’ Grants)
We are living in an upside down reality in which efforts to remedy racial injustice are now considered racist by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. 😡https://t.co/VvvcztLbPE
— Texas Conference of the AAUP (@TexasAaup) February 15, 2025
The AAUP stated the order meant the administration “has declared war on American civil rights in education” and said schools must “stand up and defend what higher education is and does” calling for mass noncompliance with the rule.
“Trump and his cronies, through threats and intimidation, are dead set on returning to a world where they enjoyed unfettered preferential treatment,” AAUP wrote. “They are commandeering Congress’s power of the purse to harden and preserve their own inequitable advantages. We must refuse.”
“In the face of these assaults on education and civil rights, students and faculty nationwide are organizing in their communities,” AAUP continued. “Join us. The way to confront those intent on dismantling our democracy is to join together in mass action.”
AASA advised schools that the process for the education department to revoke funding for incompliance with civil rights laws is lengthy, therefore schools should risk defying the administration.
“It is also important for districts to remember that there is a long-drawn out process for rescinding funding for failure to comply with civil rights laws,” AASA wrote. “OCR must first initiate a compliance review or other investigation, actually investigate the complaint, including allowing the educational institution to submit data and a legal response to the allegations, and make a finding that the institution or agency has violated the law.”
EdTrust referred to the department’s letter as a “perversion of the Civil Rights Act” and similarly advised schools to “be steadfast in their commitment to programs and strategies that support Black students and must not be deterred by inflammatory language and threats to funding in the litany of executive orders and Dear Colleague Letters from the new administration.”
President Donald Trump has taken several efforts to root out DEI from schools, issuing a Jan. 29 order demanding schools stop teaching radical gender ideology and Critical Race Theory (CRT) or risk losing federal funding. The Department of Education has already begun dismantling DEI within its walls, scrubbing hundreds of documents from its website outlining DEI practices, dissolving DEI teams, halting DEI trainings and placing several staff on administrative leave.
“As President Trump made clear, any entity that receives taxpayer dollars and violates Title IX faces losing federal funding,” Craig Trainor, Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the Department of Education, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “We encourage anyone enduring discrimination or retaliation because of a covered institution’s suspected Title IX violation to file a complaint with OCR. The Trump Education Department will continue to work to ensure schools and athletic associations across the country are in compliance with Title IX, and we welcome states to do the same.”
AASA, AAUP, ACE and EdTrust did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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