Dive Brief:
- The U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Minneapolis Public Schools on Tuesday for its teacher union agreement, which the department alleges racially discriminates because of its diversity efforts, including those aimed at recruiting and retaining Black men.
- The lawsuit challenges the bargaining agreement's "Anti-Bias Anti-Racist Staff Development and Advisory Council," which is a district-wide initiative to support educators of color. The contract also requires that the district involuntarily reassigns or lays off teachers based on seniority unless a teacher is from an underrepresented group — in which case the district is required to reassign a non-underrepresented teacher, the lawsuit claims.
- In its lawsuit, the Justice Department says the district's efforts to increase staff of color "grant employment privileges to teachers who are members of underrepresented populations' based on their race, color, or national origin that are not granted to teachers who are not members of an underrepresented population." The federal agency sued under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination.
Dive Insight:
The Justice Department under the Trump administration has taken on a greater role in K-12 than in previous administrations. Whereas legal action against school districts from the Justice Department was a once-in-a-blue-moon occurrence, it has recently collaborated with the U.S. Department of Education to crack down through civil rights investigations on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts involving LGBTQ+ students.
Its most recent lawsuit expands that front to also include DEI efforts in teacher hiring — which was an increasingly common practice often recommended by educational equity and civil rights organizations in K-12.
However, the crackdown under the Trump administration on DEI is pushing many districts to reconsider or reframe their diversity initiatives. Lawsuits and education experts have described its effect on the classroom as "chilling," with reports of staff feeling pushed to censor their curriculum and classroom discussions. Others are worried that anti-DEI efforts could lead to a return of the stigmas and segregation of students with disabilities and cause other harms.
According to Defending Education, a conservative education advocacy organization, DEI in teachers' union contracts is increasingly common, with major districts including but not limited to California's Oakland Unified School District, Colorado's Denver Public Schools, Virginia's Arlington Public Schools, Minnesota's Saint Paul Public Schools, Washington's Seattle Public Schools, and others. The agreements are meant to advance equity in education overall and specifically the teaching workforce.
Many of the contracts focus on diversifying the workforce by providing supports and improving school climates for educators of color. Minneapolis' agreement with its union is also included in the conservative organization's list.
Minneapolis Public Schools’ agreement with its union from 2023-2025 shows that part of its "anti-bias" and "anti-racist" efforts included professional development and educator support for incoming and current educational staff, "with a committed focus on reducing inequitable practices and behaviors in our learning places and spaces as well as supporting educators, specifically educators of color, in navigating and disrupting our district as a predominantly white institution.” The Justice Department took issue with that phrasing in its lawsuit.
The bargaining agreement clauses that the Justice Department cited in its lawsuit against Minneapolis Public Schools also included practices like providing incident reporting mechanisms, offering professional development for all staff to "effectively disrupt and dismantle racist and oppressive policies," establishing recruitment, retention and development initiatives for educators of color and improving district-wide climate for them.
“Discrimination is unacceptable in all forms, especially when it comes to hiring decisions,” said U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi in a Wednesday statement, a day after the lawsuit’s filing. “Our public education system in Minnesota and across the country must be a bastion of merit and equal opportunity — not DEI.”
The Justice Department's Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said the agency "will vigorously pursue employers who deny their employees equal opportunities and benefits by classifying and limiting them based on their race, color, national origin, or sex.”
Minneapolis Public Schools and its union declined to comment to K-12 Dive on the pending litigation.
