New York state education officials rejected President Trump’s administration's demand to do away with certain diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts, rebuking the Department of Education (DOE) amid threats of pulling funding over those efforts.
The New York State Education Department officials said Friday, “We understand that the current administration seeks to censor anything it deems ‘diversity, equity & inclusion.’
“But there are no federal or state laws prohibiting the principles of D.E.I.,” Daniel Morton-Bentley, counsel and deputy commissioner of New York’s Department of Education, said in a Friday letter to the DOE that was obtained by The Hill.
Morton-Bentley wrote in the letter that state education officials are “unaware” of any jurisdiction DEO has to ax funding with an administrative process taking place.
The Hill has reached out to the DOE for comment.
The 3-page letter came just a day after the administration told education officials around the country to affirm that all DEI programs, that they view as discriminatory, be eliminated and that they are complying with federal civil rights laws. If not, the federal government threatened to pull funding.
Federal funds comprise around six percent of New York's K-12 school funding. Federal funding made up around $2.2 billion of the New York City Public Schools’ budget for the fiscal year 2025.
In their demand, the DOE’s acting assistant secretary for civil rights Craig Trainor said that “federal financial assistance is a privilege, not a right.”
He said many schools have flouted their legal obligations, “including by using DEI programs to discriminate against one group of Americans to favor another,” according to The Associated Press. Federal officials threatened to halt Title I funding.
In the DOE memo from Thursday, federal officials also referenced the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision that race-conscious admissions are unlawful in higher education.
Morton-Bentley said the DOE is “entitled to make whatever policy pronouncement it wants - but cannot conflate policy with law.”
“Given the fact that you are already in possession of guarantees by NYSED that it has and will comply with Title VI, no further certification will be forthcoming,” Morton-Bentley wrote in the letter.
Democrats on Capitol Hill told the DOE in late February to back off their threats of pulling funds from schools with DEI programs, The Hill reported.
“Schools’ diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility initiatives simply aim to level the playing field and redress the ongoing harms of segregation and centuries of legal inequity, exclusion, and discrimination,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter.
Updated at 4:43 p.m. EDT
