Nearly a year ago, the Education Department sent universities and K-12 school districts scrambling with a sweeping but vague directive. The “Dear Colleague” letter said schools may be in violation of federal law if they consider race in virtually any way — hiring, discipline policy, scholarships, or programming.
After a lawsuit and a defeat in court, however, the Trump administration says it is dropping the matter entirely.
That means an August federal court order blocking the “Dear Colleague” letter will stand. The Trump administration had also demanded that schools certify that they are in compliance with the letter, and that demand is now dead, too.
Still, it is unclear how significant the impact will be. The Trump administration, which made sweeping changes to education over its first year, can still work to impose its view of the law on schools through enforcement actions and other pressure. For instance, in July, the Justice Department published a memo that included many of the same ideas that were in the Education Department’s letter.
Further, many schools have already changed their diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, wary of running afoul of the administration’s anti-DEI stance.
In a statement, Education Department spokesperson Julie Hartman said the agency will continue to interpret Title VI of the Civil Rights Act as barring “impermissible DEI initiatives” that discriminate on the basis of race, color, or national origin.
“Title VI has always prohibited schools from racial preferencing and stereotyping, and it continues to do so with or without the February 14th Dear Colleague Letter,” Hartman said. She said the agency’s civil rights office “will continue to vigorously enforce Title VI to protect all students and hold violators accountable.”
The letter, issued by the department last February, laid out the agency’s interpretation of civil rights law and argued that schools at every level had embraced “pervasive and repugnant race-based preferences and other forms of racial discrimination.”
It said that efforts to consider race in staffing, programming, and other aspects of campus life were unlawful, and that even race-neutral policies aimed at diversity could result in schools, colleges, and universities losing federal funding.
Soon after, the American Federation of Teachers filed a lawsuit challenging the directive.
In court, the government argued that it was simply clarifying and reaffirming that schools may not practice racial discrimination. But in August, U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher in Maryland struck down both the guidance and the certification requirement, saying the department was trying to “substantially alter the legal obligations” of schools without going through proper procedures.
“The government did not merely remind educators that discrimination is illegal: it initiated a sea change in how the Department of Education regulates educational practices and classroom conduct, causing millions of educators to reasonably fear that their lawful, and even beneficial, speech might cause them or their schools to be punished,” she wrote.
The judge pointed to the letter’s suggestion that teaching about “systemic and structural racism” would be discriminatory. That, she wrote, is “textbook viewpoint discrimination” and contrary to law.
The government appealed Gallagher’s ruling, and the case was proceeding until Wednesday, when the administration informed the court that it was dropping its challenge. That left the August ruling in place.
The American Federation of Teachers and Democracy Forward, which brought the case, hailed the legal victory as a “final defeat” for the administration’s attempt to enforce what they see as an unlawful interpretation of civil rights law.
“With the stroke of a pen, the administration tried to take a hatchet to 60 years of civil rights laws that were meant to create educational opportunity for all kids,” Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, the lead plaintiff, said in a statement.
The government’s decision to drop its appeal should put an end to the assertions in the original guidance since it was so thoroughly rejected by the court, said Michael Pillera, who worked for a decade at the Education Department’s civil rights office before becoming director of the educational opportunities project at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
“The Dear Colleague letter was really their opening volley in their campaign of chaos against DEI, and what we have now is a spectacular failure,” he said. “They could not defend their positions in court. They had no argument to stand on.”
But he conceded that it’s possible nothing will change and said the administration’s behavior “is often untethered to law.”
Many schools may continue to comply with the anti-DEI directive in an effort to stave off attention from the administration, said Frederick Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.
“One of the things we have seen is how reluctant institutional leaders are to get crosswise with the federal government, whether or not it’s clearly aligned with the law,” he said.
Either way, Hess said, he was pleased that the February letter is no longer in force. That’s because he does not think those types of guidance documents should be used to make policy — something that both Democratic and Republican administrations have done in the past.
“Dear Colleague letters have become a blunt instrument to move thousands of postsecondary institutions or 10,000-plus school districts in one direction or another, and I don’t think that’s an appropriate use of them,” he said. “I don’t think that’s good for anybody.”
