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State Attorneys General Defend DEI [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-03-06
New York State Attorney General Letitia James and Attorneys General from Illinois, Massachusetts, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and the District of Columbia issued a legal response to a Trump Executive Order and a Federal Department of Education “Dear Colleague” letter targeting diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility policies and programming in schools. The letter accusing the Trump administration of misconstruing a Supreme Court precedent creating a “misimpression of the impact of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility programming and its legality.” The Supreme Court decision cited in the Executive Order and the “Dear Colleague” letter is “specific to higher education admissions practices” and did not address school curriculum or services. In addition, federal courts have reaffirmed that “it is not unlawful for a school to implement race-neutral admissions practices in order to increase student body diversity.”
The “Dear Colleague” letter mischaracterized DEI programs stating that they “stigmatize students who belong to particular racial groups based on crude racial stereotypes.” The Attorney Generals refuted this claim asserting that DEI practices and programs that “lawfully promote diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility confer important educational and social benefits for students by providing learning environments where all students have an “equal opportunity to learn and better prepare students to work in our diverse country and participate in our multiracial democracy.”
Nothing in the Supreme Court impedes an educational institutions’ “ability to work to achieve diversity and equity.” In addition, the letter from the Attorney Generals makes clear that “nothing in the ‘Dear Colleague’ letter or FAQ changes existing law and well-established legal principles” and that “The President cannot change longstanding legal precedent by executive order.”
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