DEI in schools: NY education department says it will not comply with federal directive

New York State’s education department vowed Friday to defy a Trump administration directive that states certify they had ended racial preferences and other diversity, equity and inclusion programs in K-12 schools or face the loss of federal funding.

Responding to the directive, sent a day earlier to all state education departments nationwide, New York education department counsel Daniel Morton-Bentley wrote that the Trump administration “seeks to censor anything it deems ‘diversity, equity & inclusion,’ ” but “there are no federal or State laws prohibiting the principles of DEI.”

Cabinet agencies such as the U.S. Department of Education have regulatory powers to enact rules that interpret laws and court decisions but New York believes that the Trump administration has exceeded its authority. The administration, in the directive to which Morton-Bentley was responding, says that DEI is prohibited at the state level, due to federal civil rights law and a 2023 Supreme Court ruling prohibiting affirmative action in college admission.

It was unclear from the letter the extent to which the state education department practices or requires DEI.

The Trump administration has moved to end DEI programs across the federal government and used legal threats and other means to carry out similar prohibitions in education and in private organizations such as law firms.