Maine Schools Warned Against Discriminating on the Basis of Race, Color, or National Origin.
The Federal DOE gives schools 14 days to get rid of DEI programs in public schools
Hello, this is Representative John Eder of the beautiful, family-friendly and business-friendly Town of Waterboro with the Weekly Republican Address.
On February 14, the Department of Education sent a letter to all states giving them 14 days to get rid of DEI programs in public schools.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, or so called DEI, is a form of discrimination against students on the basis of race.
It’s just designed to stoke old racial divisions.
It’s a divisive cancer that has spread throughout our education system at the expense of our children’s well-being, their learning, emotional development, and society at large.
It is also illegal.
DEI violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution and many other relevant authorities.
That’s the takeaway from the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (SFFA).
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights has instructed the Maine Department of Education that it intends to take appropriate measures to assess compliance with applicable statutes and regulations outlined in their letter.
Anti-discrimination requirements will be a condition of receiving federal funding.
Maine educational institutions have been advised to:
(1) “Ensure that their policies and actions comply with existing civil rights law;
(2) Cease all efforts to circumvent prohibitions on the use of race by relying on proxies or other indirect means to accomplish such ends;
and
(3) Cease all reliance on third-party contractors, clearinghouses, or aggregators that are being used by institutions in an effort to circumvent prohibited uses of race.
Institutions that fail to comply with federal civil rights law may, consistent with applicable law, face potential loss of federal funding."
This is welcome news for student learning folks.
Legislative Republicans, concerned parents, and others responded sharply when the Maine Education Commissioner told the Education Committee that “Academic learning is definitely doing to take a backseat to all these other pieces” - social emotional learning and programming on race and gender.
Schools shouldn’t be promoting DEI or gender confusion among young children whose brains are not fully formed and who are in a confusing stage of their development as it is.
Encouraging the removal of a boy or girl’s body parts, or their ability to reproduce as an adult, is just cruel, and unusual and inhumane. It also distracts children from essential academics to prepare them for a successful and productive life.
The Commissioner’s attitude, and the spread of DEI throughout our schools, is a contributing factor to the steady decline of Maine’s education system and student achievement.
Just listen to these statistics.
Maine recently had the biggest drop in reading and math proficiency in the entire country, falling 10 percentage points since 2019.
And it is unacceptable that only 26% of Maine fourth graders are proficient in reading and 33% in math.
Maine eighth graders also score poorly, only 25% are proficient in math and 26% are proficient in reading.
That’s pathetic.
This is what happens when core curriculum takes a backseat to DEI.
House Republicans call upon the Department of Education to stop promoting racial discrimination and gender confusion through DEI, comply with the law, and get back to teaching our children to read and write and do math so they can develop into productive adults.
That’s why I proudly switched to the Republican Party. It’s the Party of common sense.
This has been Representative John Eder with the Weekly Republican Radio Address.
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And have a wonderful day.
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