The Education Department's demand that K-12 districts and state officials certify their schools are free of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs is being met with open defiance from blue states and open arms by red ones.
Highlighting an already stark divide on the issue, states including New York and Minnesota are telling the federal government they will not sign off on any such certification, while several red states are already collecting signatures from their districts.
The issue poses the first major test for states and local districts bucking the education agenda of President Trump, who has shown willing aggression in going after colleges and universities he thinks are out of line.
“I am on the reservation, so pretty much … I mean, everything that we do is DEI,” said a principal in a Republican-led state who oversees a school that is 95 percent Native American, and who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.
“We don't really have a plan for it,” the principal added regarding the certification letter. “In talking to some of my other district administrators, it's kind of an attitude of, ‘We'll see what happens when it gets sorted out in the courts’ […] ‘we'll worry about it when the time comes,’ ‘it's really not going to be what everybody thinks.’ It is just kind of a lot of disbelief, which is really frustrating.”
The April 3 letter was sent to state officials and districts to certify the institutions are in “compliance with their antidiscrimination obligations,” including ridding themselves of DEI programs, which Trump hates and has sought to eliminate through executive action.
In an extended deadline, the Education Department now says officials have until April 24 to comply.
If the programs are not gone, the administration says, funding could be pulled from the K-12 districts. Federal money makes up around 10 percent of funding for public schools, with some variation based on need, and, at the collegiate level, Trump has quickly targeted the finances of schools that displease him.
“Unfortunately, we have seen too many schools flout or outright violate these obligations, including by using DEI programs to discriminate against one group of Americans to favor another based on identity characteristics in clear violation of Title VI,” Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights at the Education Department, wrote in the certification letter.
Sasha Pudelski, director of advocacy at the School Superintendents Association, notes that “for some states, this is going to be a non-issue.”
“And I think that's important to recognize that there's going to be a lot of variety in how states respond to this and how they inform districts, or how they kind of relate the district's responsibility to respond to this,” Pudelski said.
Republican-led states including Indiana and Oklahoma have said publicly they will comply with the directive. Other red states will likely agree as many, including Florida and Texas, have laws on the books already cracking down on DEI.
“We will ensure all school districts understand and adhere to the law accordingly,” Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters said.
But other states, including Colorado and Minnesota, are digging in.
Minnesota sent a response letter to the Department of Education saying the certification “seeks to change the terms and conditions of federal financial assistance awarded to MDE without formal administrative process.”
The states says there is no formal definition of DEI and that Minnesota schools are all following federal law.
“As noted at the outset, MDE has already provided the requisite guarantee that it has and will comply with Title VI and its implementing regulation, and that includes our assurance that we do and will comply with Supreme Court cases interpreting the same. We submit this letter to serve as our response to this specific request,” the letter concludes.
The Hill has reached out to the Department of Education for comment.
The K-12 certification memo came after the department sent out a Feb. 14 “Dear Colleague” letter that told universities to get rid of DEI programs or risk losing federal funding.
The National Education Association, who was already challenging the colleges' “Dear Colleague” letter in court, added the K-12 certification to its lawsuit.
The organization and Department of Education came to an agreement that no enforcement action could be taken on either letter until April 24 as the case proceeds.
Pudelski said that some districts were already discussing this issue after the February “Dear Colleague” letter to universities, assuming they would face something similar.
According to Education Department documents released as part of the lawsuit, whether a program specifically uses the words diversity, equity or inclusion does not matter to the administration in terms of if it violates Title VI.
“Schools may not operate policies or programs under any name that treat students differently based on race, engage in racial stereotyping, or create hostile environments for students of particular races. For example, schools with programs focused on interests in particular cultures, heritages, and areas of the world would not in and of themselves violate Title VI, assuming they are open to all students regardless of race,” the document said.
“However, schools must consider whether any school programming discourages members of all races from attending, either by excluding or discouraging students of a particular race or races, or by creating hostile environments based on race for students who do participate,” it added.
David Law, a Minnesota superintendent, said after their state officials' response, schools are just waiting to see what happens and have not changed any of their programs, adding, “The part of the part of the executive order that talks about “harmful DEI,’ I think if I talk to my colleagues around the state, there's a question about, what exactly is that? Because we don't think, we don't think we're doing harmful DEI in our schools.”
And some schools in GOP states playing the same waiting game, but without the support of state-level leaders.
“I think part of the attitude of some of our stakeholders above me is that we're going to fly under the radar, and that frightens me a lot as a professional […] We can't just count on flying under the radar, because that's not going to save my license,” said the principal in the red state who described her district as in a blue pocket in their area.
In her school, the principal said there are programs for new teachers to understand cultural norms due to the high percentage of Native Americans, and the school has events around issues such as missing Indigenous women.
“It's not designed to make people feel some kind of way, which is portrayed in the news about brainwashing students and exposing them to all of these things that are morally questionable about transgender and things like that that you often hear about in the news. That's not the type of trainings that that we provide when we talk about cultural sensitivity but using funds to pay for speakers to come in and paying teachers their wages to go through those types of professional developments are going to come into question,” the principal added.
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