(Feb. 13, 2025): President Trump has proven his commitment to ending Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies through his executive orders. Southeastern Legal Foundation has long been fighting these policies, specifically regarding an appeal filed with the Office of Civil Rights about a complaint pertaining to racial discrimination and segregation occurring in Evanston/Skokie School District 65 outside of Chicago, Illinois.
President Trump and the Department of Education have the unique opportunity to quickly prove their commitment to these executive orders by acting on this complaint and reinstating their 2020 formal finding that District 65 violated America’s civil rights laws.
This all began because a teacher stood up for her rights and filed a complaint with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) against District 65 for direct racial segregation of students and teachers in the form of “affinity groups” and “privilege walks.” After an 18-month investigation, OCR issued a formal decision finding that District 65 violated the Civil Rights Act and ruled that they must stop segregating and discriminating against students and teachers. OCR explained that “[b]y instructing teachers to ask their students what it means ‘to be white without signing on to whiteness,’ …the District appears to have deliberately singled out students and other individuals by their race, in order to reduce them to a set of racial stereotypes. Title VI bars such discriminatory conduct.” [Emphasis added]
This decision found that the school district—an arm of the government—was deliberately using skin color and ethnicity as bright line factors for separating and segregating students and teachers. However, for reasons that remain unexplained, just days after taking office the Biden Administration suspended the complaint (put it “on ice”), which allowed blatant segregation and discrimination to continue and worsen. Now, nearly every lesson in every grade reflects critical race theory and rejects colorblindness.
SLF’s appeal is still pending and the Trump Administration can take action today. It merely has to grant the appeal and reinstate the original OCR decision. President Trump has made clear that this kind of racial divide will no longer be tolerated, and the rights of all people will be protected. SLF’s appeal provides a unique opportunity here for President Trump and the Department of Education to oversee the end of racial segregation and protect civil liberties of all Americans.
Southeastern Legal Foundation Executive Director Kim Hermann said, “We are well aware that School District 65 violated the rights of ALL teachers and students by forcing them to racially segregate, and the Office for Civil Rights correctly made a decision against the school district for this discrimination. However, ignoring the rights of Americans, this decision was suspended by the Biden Administration. We appreciate President Trump’s statements in support of stopping all actions of this kind and are looking forward to seeing what his administration may do in response to this pending OCR complaint and appeal. Now is the time to send a message to all school districts attempting to participate in segregation or discrimination that these policies will not be tolerated.”
Download press release.