WASHINGTON (AP) — The Education Department will no longer consider school policies that disproportionately harm one group of students as discriminatory unless the discrimination is intentional, rescinding a decades-long standard for civil rights enforcement. In a rule change announced Thursday, the department said it would remove a number of disparate impact provisions from its regulations related to the implementation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which bars discrimination on the basis of race or national origin. In schools, the standard has most notably been applied to school discipline policies. Across the country, data shows Black students have been more likely to receive punishments that remove them from the classroom, such as suspensions, expulsions and transfers to alternative schools. Racial justice advocates have pushed for policies that would reduce those disparities, and those efforts in turn have drawn opposition from the Trump administration.
In an executive order last year, the White House directed the Education Department to issue new school discipline guidance, and called for a review of organizations that had promoted policies to address disparities in discipline. In a written statement, the department said that disparate impact had forced schools and universities to engage in racial balancing for fear of federal enforcement.
