The Trump administration is openly waging war on diversity, equity and inclusion. In doing so, it has mistakenly labeled major civil rights laws as DEI programs. This is problematic. The 1964 Civil Rights Act was enacted by Congress to aid in the dismantling of the system of racial segregation that persisted following the end of the Civil War. Among other things, the act authorized funding for the operation of Desegregation Assistance Centers, recently renamed Equity Assistance Centers, to provide school districts with technical support toward complying with civil rights law and undoing the lasting damage of legally sanctioned segregation in public education.
In February, the Trump administration issued an executive order eliminating federal funding for DEI programs. The U.S. Department of Education followed by terminating numerous grants, including the grant that funds the DAC. Despite the name change from Desegregation to Equity, these DAC centers remain rooted in the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the rule of law issued from the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. These centers are not DEI policy programs. These centers are authorized by congressional mandate. There is a clear difference between funding for compliance with the 1964 Civil Rights Act and funding for DEI initiatives. Unfortunately, the current administration does not seem to know the difference. DEI is laudable policy. It simply is not the focus nor is it the directive of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The Southern Education Foundation has filed a lawsuit to preserve federal funding for the Southern DAC and pursue resolution of our nation’s remaining school desegregation issues. But in today’s political climate, the lines between civil rights enforcement and DEI have been recklessly blurred. We now see attacks on constitutionally mandated civil rights programs under the false banner of fighting “wokeness.” That is both legally flawed and morally wrong.
Credit: Contributed
Credit: Contributed
The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s that birthed the 1964 Civil Rights Act was not a DEI movement. It featured heroic fights in Selma, Birmingham, Montgomery and Little Rock. It highlighted the work of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Black church that marched and prayed for deliverance from Jim Crow. It was and is about bringing the United States into compliance with its own Constitution. African Americans were jailed and beaten, and Black churches were bombed in resistance to the movement to end the system of racial segregation that was implemented primarily in the South. Let’s be clear — laws upholding racial segregation were for the purpose of continuing the oppression of Black people despite the end of slavery. It is a factual ignorance and a gross insensitivity to blend the 1964 Civil Rights Act with DEI.
The EAC-South, which Southern Education Foundation operated, was one of four regional centers that provided technical assistance to school districts still under federal desegregation orders. That work is still very much needed. Today, 130 school districts in the South remain under federal desegregation orders. In many of these districts, Black students continue to be denied equal educational opportunities. It is not uncommon to see one side of a district receive funding for STEM courses, music programs and technology while Black students across town do not. That is unconstitutional. And that is exactly what DAC’s exist to fix.
By eliminating these centers and mislabeling their work as DEI, the federal government is abandoning its legal and moral responsibility. There are far too many people alive today who lived through lawful segregation and remember the signs that read “Whites Only” and “Colored Entrance.” I do. This is not ancient history. This is a living memory. And it is unfinished business.
By shutting down the EAC’s, the administration is not just walking away from the rule of law in Brown and the congressional mandate of Title IV of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, it is allowing revival of an inequality our nation worked so hard to remove from the American experience. SEF’s lawsuit is intended to stop this and hold the government accountable. We do this not out of nostalgia, but out of necessity. The Constitution doesn’t change because the political winds shift. The fight for equal educational opportunity doesn’t end because some have chosen to forget how far we’ve come — or how far we still have to go.
Raymond C. Pierce is president and chief executive officer of the Southern Education Foundation, which is based in Atlanta.
About the Author
Keep Reading
The Latest
Featured
