Education Department No Longer Requiring Race to Be Considered in K-12 Student Discipline

The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights on July 23 announced deregulatory actions that it says will no longer require schools to consider a child’s race when disciplining them for disruptive behavior.

These “disparate-impact” provisions have existed for decades but became more widely known under President Barack Obama, who withheld federal aid from districts if black and Hispanic students were repeatedly disproportionately suspended in comparison with students of other races.

In April of 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to restore equal opportunity and meritocracy, which in theory eliminates the use of disparate-impact liability. The U.S. Department of Justice removed the terms from its regulations in December, but the Department of Education had not announced the same action until now.

This change ensures that “federal law is upheld while teachers retain control over their classrooms across America,” Kimberly Richey, Department of Education assistant secretary for Civil Rights, said in a July 23 news release.

“A child is so much more than a number in a data set. The left’s notion of ‘equity’ should never prevent teachers from keeping their classrooms and students safe,” she said. “With these changes, schools will be empowered to address classroom issues without fearing the federal government will weaponize antidiscrimination laws.”

The federal agency’s Office for Civil Rights still maintains a website where students, parents, and members of the public can file a complaint if they believe they were discriminated against or retaliated against.

The Legal Defense Fund, an organization that says it’s focused on racial justice, issued a statement opposing the deregulation, saying it will hurt “students of color and other marginalized students who face higher rates of discrimination.”

“Today’s action has no basis in law or morality and is further evidence that this administration is determined to undermine our laws, abandon civil rights enforcement, and deny the existence of systemic discrimination,” the group said in a July 23 news release.

An Epoch Times investigation published last year detailed how the Obama administration rolled out disparate-impact measures and enforced restorative justice practices.

In early 2014, the Department of Education issued a “dear colleague” letter that announced K–12 public schools could lose federal funding in accordance with Civil Rights laws if they disproportionately suspended black students.

As an alternative to suspension, the letter said, “successful programs may incorporate a wide range of strategies to reduce misbehavior and maintain a safe learning environment, including conflict resolution, restorative practices, counseling, and structured systems of positive interventions.”

The policy required districts to track and report suspension rates by race and ordered them to lower disparate-impact ratios for non-white students, regardless of the individual district’s demographics.

The most recent FBI report regarding crime in schools notes that the number of criminal incidents in learning facilities has more than tripled, from 100,810 in 2020 to nearly 330,000 in 2024. Assault was the most common incident type (538,778 total), followed by larceny/theft (234,601). These are totals for both K–12 and higher education over the five years.

Additionally, the National Center for Education Statistics reported 857,500 violent incidents at public K–12 schools during the 2021–2022 academic year.