WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 20: U.S. President Donald Trump stands with Secretary of Education Linda McMahon after signing an executive order to reduce the size and scope of the Education Department during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House on March 20, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
The NAACP is challenging the Trump administration in a new federal lawsuit that accuses the U.S. Department of Education of violating the civil rights of Black American students with its broad anti-DEI policies..
In the lawsuit, filed in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, the nation’s oldest civil rights organization, joined by the Legal Defense Fund, targets the DOE’s threat to withhold federal funding from school districts if they do not eliminate a range of programs and curriculums designed to foster racial diversity, equity, and inclusion. The lawsuit’s defendants also name Education Secretary Linda McMahon and Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor.
In February, the Education Department sent a “Dear Colleague” letter to schools, requiring them to submit a “certification of compliance” with the Trump administration’s orders to terminate programs that consider race as a factor in various areas, including admissions, hiring and promotion, pay, financial aid, scholarships and prizes, housing and graduation ceremonies. The Trump administration told school districts that federal law prevents schools from enacting such DEI policies.
However, the NAACP, in its lawsuit, argues that the Trump administration is basing its anti-DEI agenda on “misrepresentations” of civil rights laws, including Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
“The Department of Education’s recent ‘Dear Colleague’ letter and other communications are not only deeply misleading — they are a gross distortion of reality that attempts to erase the lived experiences of millions of Black and Brown children in this country,” said Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of the NAACP, in a statement announcing the lawsuit.
The NAACP alleges that Trump administration is “intentionally discriminating” against Black students through “its efforts to defund federal grantees based on erroneous facts and interpretations of law.”
“The Department of Education, tasked with a responsibility to protect the civil rights of all children, has instead claimed systemic racism doesn’t exist — effectively sanctioning the very discrimination that our civil rights laws were designed to prevent,” said Johnson. “Meanwhile, children of color consistently attend segregated, chronically underfunded schools where they receive less educational opportunities and more discipline.”
The civil rights leader added, “Denying these truths doesn’t make them disappear — it deepens the harm. We are asking the court to act swiftly to our request and will continue to advocate for students of color to be treated fairly and equitably.”
The NAACP is asking the federal district court to urge the Education Department to stop proceeding with its enforcement actions, some of which have already resulted in schools losing funding. Other schools have already complied by canceling their DEI-related programs.
Michaele N. Turnage Young, senior counsel and co-manager of the Equal Protection Initiative at the Legal Defense Fund, said the actions of the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights are “in direct conflict with its mission,” saying the agency has “baselessly characterized vital efforts to advance racial equality” as racially discriminatory and is “weaponizing the anti-discrimination laws against the very communities they are meant to protect.”
U.S. Rep. Alma Adams, D-N.C., a member of the House Education and Workforce Committee, previously told theGrio of the Trump administration’s anti-DEI agenda in schools, “It looks like they are trying to enslave us again.”
“Diversity, equity and inclusion are not bad words, and they’re not bad things,” she explained. “I don’t know what all of that is about, other than the fact that it appears that this administration has some real racist views.”