Trump is setting the US on a path to educational authoritarianism
While we watch students getting handcuffed, vague new guidelines create a culture of fear over teaching our history
On 14 February, the US Department of Education’s office of civil rights issued a letter providing notice to American educational institutions, schools and universities of the department’s new interpretation of federal civil rights law. The letter lays out new conditions for institutions to receive federal funding, including in the form of student loans or scientific and medical research.
Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin in federally assisted programs or activities. The education department’s “Dear Colleagues” letter redefines the central targets of Title VI to centrally include supposed discrimination against whites. The letter was followed, on 28 February, with a set of guidelines for its interpretation. The novel understanding of anti-white discrimination in these documents is a chilling manifestation of educational authoritarianism.
Educational institutions have toxically indoctrinated students with the false premise that the United States is built upon ‘systemic and structural racism’ and advanced discriminatory policies and practices. Proponents of these discriminatory practices have attempted to further justify them – particularly during the last four years – under the banner of ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ (‘DEI’), smuggling racial stereotypes and explicit race-consciousness into everyday training, programming, and discipline.
a racially-oriented vision of social justice, or similar goals will be probative in OCR’s analysis of the facts and circumstances of an individual case.
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