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The Republican Race War is Coming to a School Near You [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-04-23
Let’s be clear about what all this anti-DEI nonsense pushed by four-time indicted, twice-impeached, sexual assaulter, tax fraudster, insurrection inspirer, wannabe fascist dictator, convicted felon, Russian puppet, mob boss, President Donald Trump is all about: white grievance.
This is about how Republicans try to get white working-class voters who don’t benefit from their policies to vote for them – by convincing them they’re the victims of some kind of reverse discrimination where government programs that help black and brown people in need are the real reasons their lives aren’t going the way they’d like.
That some minority who already has the deck stacked against him who’s getting help with buying food, or heating his home, or getting into a college, or getting a job somehow directly impacts their lives. It’s why they aren’t rich, or successful, or have a job or a woman.
Look, I know some people’s lives suck. Lots of people get screwed over. Often, it’s because of things they can’t control. But every time the GOP is able to push us into a world of self-pity instead of honest self-reflection, into a mindset of blaming instead of reevaluating and resetting, it may win them votes but at the expense of our country and the people they’re lying about wanting to help.
So, the federal government moves merrily along, wiping as many Blacks and women from history as it can while it ham-handedly threatens our schools, our businesses, our institutions, if they don’t go along with the insanity of this whole operation.
Now, this disgraceful effort has made its way to a public school district near you. The institutions that educate your kids and your community’s kids are in the crosshairs. It’s good to know some states are fighting back, but not enough.
And it’s not surprising to know that states run by Republicans are rolling over faster than you can say, “We hate minorities, too, Mr. President.”
The New York Times ran a story this month titled, “A Legal Battle Over Trump’s Threats to Public School Funding Has Begun.” Its subtitle reads, “Can President Trump withhold federal money for low-incoming students? A brewing fight over diversity, equity, and inclusion programs may force the courts to decide.”
The Trump administration is threatening to take away federal funding for low-income students if districts throughout the country don’t stop using what it claims are illegal diversity programs, the Times reported.
Public schools in the United States received only about 10 percent of their funding from the federal government. Still, that doesn’t mean this wouldn’t be a significant loss for some districts. For example, Los Angeles public schools receive more than $1 billion in federal funds annually. This money helps pay for teachers’ aides, free meals, and mental health counselors.
So far, about a dozen mostly Democratic-leaning states have refused to play ball with our criminal president, the Times said. The country’s two largest teachers’ unions and the NAACP have gone to court to fight the government’s effort.
Not surprisingly, the administration is relying on what the Times calls “a novel interpretation of civil rights law” to try justify its blackmail attempts.
They’re looking at a 2023 decision by our corrupt U.S. Supreme Court overturning affirmative action in college admissions, contending it also applies to K-12 public schools. The government claims the ruling sets a framework for the use of race in education generally.
It extrapolates this to the claim that the law requires banning curriculum and programs that are targeted toward specific racial groups or that center on concepts such as structural racism, which is the idea that racial discrimination is pervasive in the economy, law, and other institutions, the Times said.
In other words, we can’t teach sensitive white kids and their borderline hysterical parents the truth about our country’s history and its current situation. I’m no lawyer, but I’m not sure any legal decision should ban teaching the truth or why any school should be punished for doing so.
“The Trump administration is trying to use a relatively narrow decision and turn it into a broad holding that brings about whatever it wishes,” Justin Driver, a Yale Law School professor and expert on the Constitution and education, told the Times.
The government – why isn’t this surprising – is threatening to withhold billions of dollars from the Title I program, which benefits low-income students. The less poor kids in your district the less you’ll lose out. I think we call that the American way.
Trump’s hitting all the MAGA talking points/hate speech. He’s threatening the state of Maine over its policies on transgender athletes (Plus he hates its governor Janet Mills after she stood up to him during a meeting at the White House. A woman no less.), and California because of its policies around parental notification for transgender students (He might hate those kids more than he does Mills, which is saying something.).
Chris Reykdal, Washington State superintendent of schools, is ready to fight.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion are “core values” in his state’s education system, Reykdal wrote in a letter responding to the Trump administration’s threat. “We will not suppress or cede that to the federal government.”
“I’m not hiding this in order to keep federal money,” Reykdal said in an interview. “I’m saying, it’s what makes us successful and we should all celebrate and be more vocal.”
He’s right. Equity, diversity, and inclusion are dirty words to the Right. Since Trump took office, they’ve become targets. In what universe does it make sense that the less diverse and inclusive our society is the better off the country is?
David A. Super, a Georgetown Law professor who has studied administrative law and the federal budget, explained that the federal government can impose fiscal penalties on state and local governments that violate the law.
The question is are these programs violations or just another racist play by the most corrupt president in history. Also, this money is allotted by Congress, whose authority Trump has continually been trying to usurp. Another thing for the courts to consider.
You can read the Times story here.
In the meantime, let’s hope the voices rising against still another administration blackmail threat will come from all the way down to the residents of the various school districts, especially with the most to lose.
Isn’t it funny how Republicans are all for “states’ rights” until they aren’t. Until they stand as an impediment to their pro-rich, anti-poor-and-middle-class, racist national agenda. In America, corporate welfare, tax cuts, deregulations, all to benefit the rich, will always be championed by the GOP.
It’s the poorest among us – including their children – who possess the least but at the same time have the most to lose who will aways be the target of the Republican shaft.
Who’s going to stick up for them? It seems like our public schools would be good candidates for that assignment.
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