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The Trump administration is limiting how the federal government addresses racial disparities in schools, eliminating a tool used to investigate policies with unequal effects on students of different races while moving to close longstanding desegregation cases.
The Education Department removed disparate-impact provisions from its Title VI regulations this summer. Disparate impact refers to policies that appear neutral but disproportionately affect people based on race, even without evidence of intentional discrimination, according to the Institute of Education Sciences.
The provisions allowed federal officials to investigate those policies under Title VI.
The Trump administration argues that Title VI prohibits intentional discrimination and that the disparate-impact rules went beyond the law by allowing race-neutral policies to be challenged based on demographic outcomes alone.
The department also told schools that considering race in discipline policies is illegal, even when students of one racial group are suspended or expelled at higher rates, according to The Associated Press.
The framework has been used in school discipline cases. Federal data show Black students are more likely than their peers to be suspended, expelled or referred to law enforcement for similar infractions, according to the Institute of Education Sciences.
In Durham Public Schools in North Carolina, a federal investigation found Black students were disproportionately receiving out-of-school suspensions, particularly for subjective infractions such as disobedience. A 2018 settlement resulted in a new student code of conduct and an equity affairs office, the AP reported.
The Justice Department announced Thursday (September 24) that its Civil Rights Division had dismissed more than 50 desegregation cases that had remained on federal court dockets for more than half a century.
The department said it is reviewing other longstanding cases and will seek dismissal when it determines a school district has achieved “unitary status.”
In DeSoto Parish, Louisiana, a federal court lifted a desegregation order in January after the Justice Department and school board requested it, the AP reported.
The district then stopped accepting new transfer applications and said students already in the transfer program would have to return to their zoned schools after completing the highest grade at their current school.
Eric Duncan, director of P-12 policy at EdTrust, pushed back on the administration’s approach, saying, “You cannot address racial disparities in school discipline by telling schools to ignore race.”
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