Minnesota Department Of Education Says No To Trump Administration’s Anti-DEI Mandate

As the administration of President Donald Trump continues its agenda to force the entire country into an ultra-conservative, anti-DEI, white nationalist utopia under the guise of racial equality, it’s nice to see that certain states are refusing to bow. On Monday, Minnesota’s Department of Education published a press release announcing that it had rejected an order by the U.S. Department of Education demanding that all K-12 school districts certify within 10 days that they are following Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by ending all DEI programs under threat of federal defunding. (In other words, when Trump says authority over education should be returned to the states and local governments, what he actually means is: “Education should be left to the states — except for the states that won’t do exactly what I want them to do, which are the states the federal government will financially force into submission by our so-called ‘small government.’“)

Minnesota Education Commissioner Willie Jett wrote in the release that the current federal administration is illegally circumventing Congress by threatening to withhold congressionally approved Title I funding, which, of course, primarily helps schools in low-income areas. (In other words, the poor and undereducated will become more poor and undereducated unless their schools join delusional Republicans in pretending white people are oppressed by diversity.)

“MDE has long followed federal law in implementing federal programs,” Jett wrote. “There is nothing unlawful in the principles underlying programs that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

Jett went on to note that the “requested, additional certification seemingly seeks to change the terms and conditions of federal financial assistance awarded to MDE without formal administrative process.”

The MDE’s core argument is that the Department of Education “does not have the authority to unilaterally overrule the will of Congress,” which is true — it’s exactly how checks and balances work. Unfortunately, we are now under the rule of a president who appears to be trying to replace the Constitution with executive orders while generally just lying about what DEI is in the first place. 

Of course, Trump’s minions are more than willing to back his anti-DEI propaganda while consistently refusing to provide evidence to substantiate it.

“Federal financial assistance is a privilege, not a right,” said acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor, who claimed without citing a single example that schools regularly “flout” or “outright violate” civil rights laws “by using DEI programs to discriminate” against (white) people.

As I’ve written before: “The truly insidious part of Trump’s agenda to rid America of racial discrimination towards the one racial group in America that has never collectively experienced systemic racism is that white conservative officials are perverting policies put in place to end the legally sanctioned anti-Black discrimination that had existed in America for the overwhelming majority of its existence, which is exactly why DEI and Affirmative Action were ever necessary in the first place.”

The Civil Rights Act was implemented because non-white people, especially Black people, had endured legalized racial discrimination for some 400 years. Now, white conservatives placed int the most influential positions in government are undermining the legislation by manipulating it to reinforce white supremacy. That’s really all the anti-DEI movement is: a reinforcement of white supremacy under the guise of racial unity.

It’s not about equality and it certainly isn’t about leaving education up to the states, which already dictate school curricula, testing, teacher hiring and teacher licensing.

It’s about ideological control, indoctrination and government overreach. You know, the things the MAGA world persistently accuses everyone else of doing.

Sad.

SEE ALSO:

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