Deadline for US Schools to Axe DEI Programs or Face Federal Funding Cuts

Parents Defending Education estimates that more than 22,000 schools serving 14 million children still maintain diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.

Illustration by The Epoch Times, Getty Images, Shutterstock

Feb. 28 is the deadline for public school districts to end all DEI-related practices, policies, and curricula or risk losing federal funding under President Donald Trump’s executive order enforcing Civil Rights protections.

The U.S. Department of Education has not yet specified the next steps for sanctioning schools following the deadline and hasn’t disclosed whether any districts proactively contacted the federal agency with proof of compliance.

“Additional guidance on implementation is forthcoming,” Craig Trainor, the agency’s acting assistant director for Civil Rights, wrote via email to The Epoch Times.

Trainor’s Feb. 14 letter provided to states and school districts noted the 14-day deadline for ceasing DEI programs.

He called race-based preferential treatment, crude racial stereotypes, and practices that promote segregation within a school “a shameful echo of a darker period in this country’s history.”

“The department will no longer tolerate the overt and covert racial discrimination that has become widespread in this nation’s educational institutions,” the letter reads.

“The law is clear: treating students differently on the basis of race to achieve nebulous goals such as diversity, racial balancing, social justice, or equity is illegal under controlling Supreme Court precedent.”

That prompted a lawsuit from the American Federation of Teachers and the American Sociological Association.

The Feb. 25 complaint, filed in a Maryland federal court, seeks to bar enforcement of Trump’s anti-DEI policy on grounds that it is overly vague and violates free speech rights.

The Epoch Times has previously reported that the five largest school districts in the nation (serving New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, and Las Vegas) collectively stand to lose more than $5 billion in federal funding if they don’t end DEI practices.

The deadline falls at the same time that many public school districts are planning their 2025–2026 budgets. Federal money typically makes up about 10 percent of a local district’s annual spending plan.

Federal funding from the U.S. Education Department is provided to schools with low-income student populations and covers special education programs.

The agency has also provided billions of dollars in competitive grants for curricula and staffing, many of which were centered on DEI and prioritized under the Biden administration.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture funds free and reduced meals for low-income students at school.  During the 2022–23 academic year, more than half of K-12 public school students were eligible for free or reduced meals, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

The Virginia-based Parents Defending Education organization constantly monitors public school activities related to DEI and transgender ideology.

As of Feb. 25, 22,805 schools serving more than 14 million students across 46 states and Washington, still maintain DEI policies, practices, and plans, according to the organization’s website.

The website provides links to DEI-related materials on the websites for each of the districts identified.

“School districts need to end diversity, equity, and inclusion policies and return to the original charter of educating children,” Rhyen Staley, a PDE researcher, wrote in a public statement.

“DEI has been a disaster for K–12, and the results are evident, as roughly 70 percent of American K–12 students are not proficient in reading or math.”