“Diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) isn’t dead. States and schools are still holding tight to DEI, despite Trump administration directives.
 

At the top of the order, New York is defiantly standing against the Trump administration’s promise to pull federal funding from public schools over their DEI programs. One day after the Education Department (ED) sent the memo to education officials around the nation to confirm the elimination of DEI programs, Daniel Morton-Bentley, the deputy commissioner for legal affairs at the state education agency in New York, penned a stern response stating “we understand that the current administration seeks to censor anything it deems ‘diversity, equity & inclusion.’” He continued, “But there are no federal or state laws prohibiting the principles of D.E.I.” Morton-Bentley also added that the federal government has “not defined what practices it believes violate civil rights protections.”
 

While many colleges and universities quietly scrub websites to hide their DEI practices and events—as well as eliminating former DEI departments and shuffling administrators and programs into other areas at their institutions under a new name—K-12 public schools are seemingly more threatened by the potential loss of federal funding. They are making their displeasure loudly known. 
 

New York is not alone in its defiant response. Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson stated that the city would take the Trump administration to court if their funding is pulled. Maine is currently suing the Trump administration for freezing federal funding after a weeks-long dispute over the state’s refusal to comply with current Title IX regulations.
 

This is all to say, we must be aware that states, schools, and professors are not currently, and will not, give up DEI practices in education easily. 
 

The ED memo sent on April 3 asks K-12 schools to certify compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act along with responsibilities outlined in the Supreme Court decision Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College (SFFA). For background, the 2023 SFFA decision was over a decade-long fight by the group Students for Fair Admissions—with support from the National Association of Scholars (NAS) and other like organizations—that sought to eliminate race-based discrimination in admissions. Harvard used a holistic admissions process to create a de facto quota of Asian students to achieve racial balancing. The evidence of discrimination was overwhelming and the Supreme Court eventually decided that the use of racial preferences in college admissions was unconstitutional. 
 

Though the ED memo to K-12 school administrators references SFFA as part of its anti-discrimination certification, New York education officials have pushed back. SFFA makes race-based affirmative action admissions programs unlawful at colleges and universities, but does not address issues involving K-12 schools, says a New York Times article. “The state’s letter argued that the case did ‘not have the totemic significance that you have assigned it’ — and that federal officials were free to make policy pronouncements, but ‘cannot conflate policy with law.’”   
 

Regardless, schools will have to comply with anti-discrimination law in order to continue receiving federal funding. Even if K-12 administrators whinge at SFFA compliance, Title VI is clear: “Title VI and its implementing regulations prohibit the disparate treatment of students based on race and national origin as well as policies or practices that have a discriminatory disparate impact by race or national origin.”
 

Higher education is no saint in this fight either. Colleges and universities, wary of the Trump administration’s ire, have begun renaming and merging existing DEI programs so that they are not easily found. Often these new offices contain the exact same staff as the previous program or department. For example, Case Western University in Ohio recently announced that “the university-wide Office for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusive Engagement will close,” but to “maintain alignment with . . . institutional values” the school is establishing “the Office for Campus Enrichment and Engagement” headed by none other than the former director of the DEI office. Apparently a sign change is all that’s needed to comply with federal law.
 

These simple bait and switch tactics may work for the time being, but are unlikely to survive so long as good citizens, Congress, the courts, and the Trump administration continue investigating these offices and programs for blatant discrimination. 
 

NAS has long urged legislation and not litigation to dispel racial preferences in education. California Proposition 209 which passed in 1996 and was drafted by NAS members made race-based admissions policies illegal. No matter the appearance of “compliance” with anti-discrimination law by higher education, or the outright flouting of it by K-12, Congress would do well to pass current legislation like the “College Admissions Accountability Act” introduced by Senator Jim Banks. Among other things, the bill,
 

• Creates a Special Inspector General within the Department of Education to investigate racial discrimination in college admissions, financial aid, and academic programs at federally funded institutions. 
• Enforces compliance with the Equal Protection Clause and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, in line with the 2023 Supreme Court ruling banning race-based admissions. 
• Grants oversight powers to receive complaints, conduct investigations, recommend corrective actions or penalties—including loss of federal funding—and propose reforms.

While K-12 schools attempt to circumvent anti-discrimination law and ED mandates, or higher education quietly hides DEI practices behind closed doors—it is a stark reminder that the DEI beast is hard to kill. It unfortunately needs a wooden stake to the heart, or at the very least to be litigated and legislated back into the deep dark depths of fringe tribalism from which it arose. 
 

Until next week.

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