In civil rights reversal, Trump DOJ sides against desegregation
The legal question before the court is narrow, but the philosophical shift conservatives are seeking is sweeping
In another attempt to bolster old standards of racism, the Trump Administration has joined a lawsuit arguing the Los Angeles Unified School District’s decades-old desegregation framework is reverse discrimination.
Filed this week, the DOJ has sided with the 1776 Project Foundation, a Billings, Montana-based conservative “advocacy” group, arguing that LAUSD’s policies designed to dismantle segregation and ensure fair funding are unconstitutional discrimination against white people. Making America Worse Again.
Filed in Los Angeles federal court in January, the complaint targets LAUSD’s use of race-based classifications to label schools as “PHBAO” — Predominantly Hispanic, Black, Asian, and Other non-Anglo — and to allocate benefits accordingly.
Fewer than 100 schools in the district lack the PHBAO designation, and the suit alleges that students at these schools, including white and Middle Eastern students, are being denied equal access to educational resources and opportunities.
In its motion to intervene Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Justice contends that LAUSD provides extra funding to the PHBAO schools to lower the student/teacher ratio by 5.5 students, and increase parent-teacher conferences. It also gives students wishing to transfer to a magnet program an admissions preference equal to that for an overcrowded school, the DOJ alleges, adding that LAUSD treats attending school with non-Whites as a disadvantage equal to attending an overcrowded school.
“Treating Americans equally is not a suggestion — it is a core constitutional guarantee that educational institutions must follow,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement. “This Department of Justice will never stop fighting to make that guarantee a reality, including for public- school students in Los Angeles.”
The legal question before the court is narrow, but the philosophical shift conservatives are seeking is sweeping: whether policies enacted to counter segregation can themselves be treated as a violation of equal protection.
Sure is a good thing governments don't have an ongoing record of racial discrimination.