When teachers are asked what wears them down most, they say it’s not worrying over their paycheck, but the behavior of students. Part of the reason student behavior has gotten so bad is disparate-impact liability.Thankfully, last week, the Education Department released a new regulation eliminating disparate-impact liability under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. Teachers, students, and parents can rest a bit easier knowing that their schools are now empowered to enforce school discipline with an eye toward school safety — and without fear of meddling by federal bureaucrats.In civil rights law, the term “disparate treatment” describes treating someone differently based on protected characteristics, including race. This is commonly known as “discrimination,” and the Civil Rights Act was passed to quash this.
However, under the disparate-impact doctrine, the term “discrimination” is applied to cases in which individuals are treated equally and end up with different results.These two definitions of “discrimination” are as different as night and day, and the conflation of the two by those pushing disparate-impact doctrine is not by accident.In 2014, the Obama administration issued a Dear Colleague Letter clarifying that schools could be held liable under Title VI if their racially neutral disciplinary practice resulted in group disparities. If disparate impact, not disparate treatment, was found, these schools could have been stripped of their federal funding.As detailed in a report by the America First Policy Institute, the results of this federal coercion resulted in a school discipline overhaul that was nothing short of disastrous. School districts rushed to adopt more lenient discipline policies, prioritizing decreasing disciplinary statistics at the cost of learning and order.A study of Philadelphia’s ban on school suspensions saw a startling decrease in students’ math and reading scores after disparate-impact policies were implemented.Similar results were seen in California, as four school districts that banned suspensions dropped the median student from the 50th to the 39th percentile in math. And another study in Pittsburgh investigating the implementation of a progressive alternative discipline known as “restorative justice” found statistically significant decreases in standardized tests for middle-school and black students.In 2018, the Trump administration rescinded former President Barack Obama’s 2014 guidance. But the Biden administration relied on nearly half-century-old regulations to continue pressuring districts to adopt overly lenient policies.The Education Department building on Wednesday, May 27, 2026, in Washington. (Graeme Jennings/Washington Examiner)
