Jan Resseger keeps a close eye on federal policies, including the many-leveled attack on DEI and civil rights. Reposted with permission.
We have all watched the Trump administration turn the definition of civil rights protection on its head. President Trump’s Department of Education and Department of Justice and others in the administration have attacked civil rights protections and programs providing equitable services for Black, Hispanic, Native American and immigrant students. The Trump administration argues instead that opportunity in America is a zero sum game in which people in the white majority have been the losers. Despite a considerable number of court decisions upholding classic civil rights protection for historically vulnerable groups of students, 2026 has brought continuing efforts by the Trump administration to undermine programs and policies that protect diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Trump Administration recently ended previously established settlement agreements between the Dept. of Ed. Office for Civil Rights and school districts to protect the civil rights of transgender students.
Trump’s Department of Education has insisted that efforts to protect the rights of transgender students in public schools violate the rights of students who are not trans. The alleged victims are said to be other students who are uncomfortable if trans students use bathrooms that do not conform to their sex assigned at birth and female athletes who are said to be disadvantaged when trans women compete in school sports. In early April, the Department of Education began terminating civil rights settlements that were negotiated by the Department’s Office for Civil Rights under the leadership of previous presidents.
The Washington Post‘s Laura Meckler and Todd Wallack explain: “Administrations often interpret civil rights law differently. The Biden administration required schools to respect transgender student rights, whereas the Trump administration says the law does not extend to gender identity… But it is highly unusual for the Education Department to rescind an agreement reached under a prior administration… In the past, administrations prioritized new cases, not relitigating old ones.” Describing the cancellation of five settlement agreements, Department of Education Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, Kimberly Richey declared: “The Trump administration is removing the unnecessary and unlawful burdens that prior Administrations imposed on schools in its relentless pursuit of a radical transgender agenda.”
Meckler and Wallack report that earlier this month, settlement agreements protecting the rights of transgender students were cancelled by the Department of Education at Taft College in California; California’s La Mesa Spring Valley School District and the Sacramento City Unified School District; Washington state’s Fife School District; Delaware’s Cape Henlopen School District; and Pennsylvania’s Delaware Valley School District.
Chalkbeat‘s Erica Meltzer and Lily Altavena interview former attorneys from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) who worry about the legal precedent being established by the Trump administration’s new strategy: “If you file a complaint, the resolution might last only as long as the next presidential election cycle. ‘How far will it go?’ asked Beth Gellman-Beer, an attorney who spent 18 years with OCR under Republican and Democratic administrations… ‘If we have another administration that is Democratic, what will it do? What will be the point for anyone to bring a case to OCR, if they can’t trust whatever decision that comes out of that complaint will remain the decision?’ ”
U.S. Dept. of Education tries to shut down Office of English Language Acquisition.
Ileana Najarro reported earlier this week for Education Week that Linda McMahon’s Department of Education has officially told Congress, “that it plans to dissolve its office that oversees federal programs for the nation’s more than 5 million English learners.” The Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA) administers Title III of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. While many of the programmatic responsibilities of OELA will be reassigned, many advocates for the rights of English learners worry that technical assistance will be fragmented and reduced. Najarro reports that the Education Department notified Congress of its plan on February 13 in order to comply with the Department of Education’s Organization Act that allows consolidation or discontinuation of specific agencies within the Department by giving Congress 90 days’ notice.
Najarro adds that the February 13 letter had “not been previously reported.” It is clear that McMahon’s department has quietly sought to restructure, and very likely reduce, services for English learners, the majority of whom are immigrants. Najarro adds: “OELA’s ability to offer guidance to states and schools hit a roadblack last year when all but one staff member was laid off as part of Education Department reductions that shrank the agency’s staff by nearly half.”
Najarro quotes Monserrat Garibay, who was in charge of OELA during the Biden administration: “(T)o now see that it’s been dismantled to different agencies, these agencies don’t have the background or the necessary skills to provide effective technical assistance to states.”
Trump Administration proposes banning DEI in all federal grants—in schools, colleges and universities, and beyond.
In January, the Trump administration ended its legal appeal of a lower court ruling that had rejected its February 14, 2025 “Dear Colleague” letter banning “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” in all K-12 public schools and higher educational institutions that receive federal funds. In early March of 2026, however, the administration proposed new guidance by which the General Services Administration would more broadly restrict federal grants to institutions which certify they do not promote “D.E.I.”
Politico‘s Bianca Quilantan reported: “The traditionally independent General Services Administration, which oversees how the federal government operates, is working to change the requirements for any entity that receives federal grants—not just schools. The agency’s proposal would require any entity that receives ‘grants, cooperative agreements, and financial assistance such as loans, insurance and direct appropriations’ to sign a certification agreement that aligns with the administration’s anti-diversity, equity and inclusion policies… Examples of potentially illegal practices, according to the document, include granting what the administration deems to be ‘preferential treatment based on race or color,’ including race-based scholarships or programs, preferential hiring or promotion practice, access to facilities or resources based on race or ethnicity and training programs.”
To date, the proposed federal rules remain a proposal. They have not yet been approved and imposed. The Education Law Center describes the public comments it submitted to highlight the problems with the proposal: “Education Law Center submitted public comments strongly opposing the federal government’s proposed changes to the ‘certifications’ that federal grant recipients must provide in order to access funds… First, the comment notes that the proposed anti-DEI certifications adds conditions that are not required by law and, in some cases, contravene existing law. In fact, the proposed certification is inconsistent with recent court orders striking down a similar DEI-related certification for federal funding recipients. The proposed language is also impermissibly vague (and) would force federal grantees to certify that they will not engage in certain ‘discriminatory practices’ without making clear what those specific practices are….” Finally… the anti-DEI certification could jeopardize crucial federal funding for state education agencies, school districts, and education-related nonprofit organizations, which often already face resource limitations.”
The proposed new federal guidance has not yet been approved, but neither has the proposal been withdrawn.
Trump Administration proposes new rules for who can be a college accreditor.
For Inside Higher Education Jessica Blake reports that earlier this week, the Trump administration proposed new rules to govern college accreditors. College accreditors are private agencies but they are federally regulated. Blake explains: “President Trump and other conservatives have long seen overhauling the accreditation system as a way to reform higher education more broadly. The draft regulations fulfill their pledges to make it easier for new accreditors to join the market and mandate what standards accreditors must and must not assess.”
Writing for New America, Jeremy Bauer-Wolf specifically comments on how the new rules would undermine civil rights protections of students in higher education: “The Education Department has prioritized purging American schools of all programs related to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and the draft regulation would only bolster that campaign… The document specifically mentions policies related to the gender discrimination law, Title IX, and those ‘that provide any preferences on the basis of race.’… Accreditors would not be able to have policies that require colleges to give preferences based on race, color, national origin, or sex—including in admissions, hiring, or contracting. Again, this is the Education Department dictating how accreditors should write their standards, undermining the independence of accreditors and higher education writ large while seeking to eliminate policies that provide students access and help ensure success.”
Finally one positive piece of news… sort of…
Earlier this month, this blog reported that the Trump administration has demanded that colleges provide years’ of data about all of their applicants and the students they admit, but that 17 states had filed a lawsuit to block the massive data collection. The Trump administration has been trying to be sure that colleges and universities are not cheating by quietly practicing affirmative action that was banned in the 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard. That April 2 blog post reported that the data collection had been temporarily banned in a preliinary injunction by Massachusetts District Court Judge Dennis Saylor until the judge had sufficient time to consider the case.
Politico‘s Bianca Quilantan reports that Judge Saylor has now blocked the Trump administration’s massive college admissions data collection for those 17 states. Politico‘s Rebecca Carballo adds that the judge has also added protection for colleges represented by the Connecticut Conference of Independent Colleges, Maine Independent Colleges Association, North Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities, Oregon Alliance of Independent Colleges and Universities… the Independent College group and other groups whose request the judge has promised to hear from.
However, Judge Saylor limited his decision to difficulty the Department of Education faces in collecting and processing the data. Saylor avoided any detailed comment the issue of the federal government’s right to collect years’ of each student’s academic and demographic data. The judge merely states that the Department of Education “likely has a right to collect the data.” Quilantan explains that Judge Saylor said the data collection was created in a “‘rushed and chaotic manner’ and problems with it are being ‘compounded’ by the Trump administration’s efforts to shutter the Education Department.” The Trump administration has severely reduced staff at the Department’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which is the only office qualified to investigate the data. In fact the very existence of NCES is being threatened by the administration’s desire to shutter the the Department of Education itself.