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Most clicked story of the week:
When, if ever, is it racially discriminatory to use or to ban Native American mascots? Who gets to decide what a mascot should be? And who should pave the road to approval?
These questions are at the heart of a long-standing debate stretching from school sports to the big leagues. And in recent months, the Trump administration has brought that debate back into the spotlight with a push to revive Native American mascots on the grounds that bans on them constitute discrimination based on race and national origin.
Number of the week:
10,000+
The number of students Austin Independent School District lost within the past decade — resulting in about 21,000 empty seats across its classrooms. The Texas district is weighing school consolidations that could go into effect as soon as the 2026-27 school year, amid challenges with prolonged declining enrollment, Superintendent Matias Segura told families in a letter on Aug. 11.
Education in the courts:
- Federal Judge Myong Joun is standing by his June decision requiring the U.S. Department of Education to restore the Office for Civil Rights “to the status-quo” so it can “carry out its statutory functions.” The order, which prevents the department from laying off OCR employees, comes despite a U.S. Supreme Court emergency order in a separate case allowing the agency to move forward with mass layoffs across the agency. The Education Department appealed Joun’s ruling Thursday to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, asking the appellate judges to allow the department to move forward with shrinking OCR.
- A 2024 U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission discrimination charge constituted an overly broad and vague “fishing expedition” that a federal court should block, the board of education for New Mexico’s Gallup-McKinley County Schools alleged in a lawsuit filed Aug. 8. Per the complaint, then-Commissioner Andrea Lucas submitted a charge alleging that the district discriminated on the basis of race in its hiring practices. The district claimed that EEOC refused a request for information about the charge’s basis, violating its due process rights, and that EEOC’s request was overbroad and exceeded its investigative authority.
- The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a ruling on an Indiana teacher’s failure-to-accommodate claim Aug. 5, saying the evidence raised questions over whether the teacher’s requested religious accommodation — an exemption from calling transgender students by their chosen names — created an “excessive” or “unjustifiable” burden on the school district.
Schools on ICE alert:
- A 15-year-old Los Angeles Unified School District student with disabilities was detained outside of Arleta High School on Monday morning by immigration enforcement officers who refused to identify themselves, according to a district spokesperson. During the incident, agents drew guns on and handcuffed the student “in an alleged case of mistaken identity,” LAUSD Board Member Kelly Gonez said in a Monday statement.
- In at least the third known time that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have arrested family members during school pick-up or drop-off time, federal immigration enforcement officers apprehended a parent during morning student drop-off hours in California’s Chula Vista Elementary School District earlier this month. While the arrest was not on public school grounds, it took place near school property, outside of the district’s Enrique S. Camarena Elementary School.
- The Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies are having “ripple effects” on immigrant children as well as children who are U.S. citizens living in mixed-status families, according to a new report by psychiatric researchers from University of California, Riverside and New York University. The policies in question include allowing enforcement on school grounds, prolonged and increased immigration detention, and ambiguity around who may be targeted.
