Trump Moves to Kill DEI
There’s an innate tension between school safety and students’ civil rights. The 74’s Mark Keierleber keeps you up to date on the news you need to know
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With America’s public education system on the chopping block of billionaire Elon Musk’s quasi-government DOGE, this week’s School (in)Security newsletter zeros in on the most recent barrage of White House orders that carry major civil rights implications for students.
Up first: An order for schools to kill diversity, equity and inclusion — or else.
Schools and universities were given 14 days to end diversity initiatives or risk losing federal funding. But the order’s vague language, civil rights advocates argue, could have a chilling effect and encourage schools to eliminate everything related to race. | Associated Press
- Suggesting statewide resistance to the DEI order, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey responded by saying “we are going to stay true to who we are in Massachusetts.” | Boston Herald
- Michigan state Superintendent Michael Rice said a review of Trump’s letter “will take time,” but as of now, the state education department “continues to support diversity in literature, comprehensive history instruction and broad recruitment to Grow Your Own programs for students and support staff to become teachers.” | Bridge Michigan
- Meanwhile, in Louisiana, state Superintendent of Education Cade Brumley endorsed Trump’s DEI directive, noting in a letter this week that his department is working to “stop inherently divisive concepts, like Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), from infiltrating Louisiana’s K-12 public education system.” | KALB
- Trump’s order applies a broad interpretation of a recent Supreme Court ruling that struck down affirmative action in college admissions and could be leveraged to restrict content taught in classrooms. | Axios
- My colleague Linda Jacobson reported this week on the Education Department’s abrupt decision to terminate $600 million in teacher training grants, many specifically designed to recruit future educators of color, who are underrepresented in the classroom. | The 74
- After PBS scrubbed a video series on LGBTQ history in response to Trump’s DEI orders, the content has a new home: the New York City school district’s website. | Chalkbeat
- A new lawsuit by college professors and diversity professionals alleges the order is unconstitutional. “In the United States, there is no king,” they write in their complaint. “In his crusade to erase diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility from our country, President Trump cannot usurp Congress’s exclusive power of the purse, nor can he silence those who disagree with him by threatening them with the loss of federal funds and other enforcement actions.” | Inside Higher Ed
- A coalition of civil rights groups filed suit against the Trump administration on Wednesday, arguing the DEI order infringed on their free speech rights. NAACP Legal Defense Fund President and Director-Counsel Janai Nelson said that “beyond spreading inaccurate, dehumanizing and divisive rhetoric,” Trump’s orders tie the hands of organizations that are “providing critical services to people who need them most.” | Time
More from Washington: Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship for children whose parents are undocumented or on work visas remains blocked after an appeals court declined to reinstate it — and paved the way for a potential battle in the Supreme Court. | NBC News
- A majority of Amerians in a recent poll opposed ending birthright citizenship and another Trump order allowing immigration agents to make arrests in churches, schools and other sensitive locations once considered off limits. | Miami Herald
Two federal courts have blocked a Trump executive order that sought to restrict transgender youth from receiving gender-affirming care, with a Washington judge writing the directive violated the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause and disregarded Congress. | Advocate
‘It looks like a zoo’: Children are among the nearly 100 migrants who were recently deported from the U.S. to Panama and placed in a detention camp with “fenced cages” on the outskirts of the jungle. | The New York Times
Trump issued an order on Thursday to end “all taxpayer-funded benefits for illegal aliens.” But undocumented immigrants generally don’t qualify for federal benefits with one major exception: In 1982, the Supreme Court found that all children, regardless of their immigration status, are entitled to a free K-12 education. | LAist
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More in the news
A judge has ordered the Milwaukee school district to station police officers on campuses within 10 days or face sanctions. Amid a dispute over school police funding, the district has not complied for more than a year with a state law that mandates police in schools. | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
School police in Texas have opened an investigation into the suicide death of an 11-year-old girl after her mother said the middle school student suffered pervasive bullying from classmates who claimed her family was in the country illegally and threatened to have them deported. | Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Sandy Hook Promise was credited with helping to thwart an 18-year-old Indiana student’s plot to commit a mass school shooting on Valentine’s Day. Police reports note a tipster to the nonprofit’s anonymous reporting system said “their friend has access to an AR15 and has just ordered a bulletproof vest.” | NBC News
Missouri public schools would be required to develop cardiac emergency response plans and equip campuses with automated external defibrillators under bipartisan legislation. | Missourinet
Fewer than half of Texas school districts are in compliance with a 2023 law requiring armed security at every campus. | KERA
Graduates of a Kent, Connecticut, boarding school have sued the institution on allegations its former IT administrator accessed financial records, medical information, photos and videos from hundreds of former students and employees. “There are potentially many hundreds of former Kent School students and employees who are victims of [the school official’s] personal invasion and sexual exploitation,” the complaint alleges. | Fox 61
Kept in the Dark
For a recent investigation for The 74 and Wired, I fell down a dark web rabbit hole and chronicled more than 300 school cyberattacks in the last five years — and revealed the degree to which school leaders in virtually every state repeatedly provide false assurances to students, parents and staff about the security of their sensitive information.
This week, I highlighted my investigation into a ransomware attack on the Minneapolis school district — an “encryption event,” according to school officials — which led to the widespread exposure of students’ sensitive data. What the district told the public and the FBI, documents I obtained through public records requests show, differed drastically.
ICYMI @The74
Emotional support
If Kathy Moore’s pup Sinead knows one thing, it’s how to build a good fort to ride out these cold winter days.
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