Cases & Developments

U.S. Department of Education (“the Department”) Secretary Linda McMahon set out her vision of the Department’s “Final Mission,” which she framed as “send[ing] education back to the states and empower[ing] all parents to choose an excellent education for their children.” Secretary McMahon enumerated three “convictions” to guide the Department’s work, including that (1) “[p]arents are the primary decision makers in their children’s education,” (2) “[t]axpayer-funded education should refocus on meaningful learning in math, reading, science, and history – not divisive DEI programs and gender ideology,” and (3) “[p]ostsecondary education should be a path to a well-paying career aligned with workforce needs.” 

U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) Press Release announcing issuance of its Frequently Asked Questions (Feb. 28, 2025) (“FAQ”) pertaining to the February 14 Dear Colleague Letter. The FAQ reiterates OCR’s broad interpretation of the scope of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, 600 U.S. 181 (2023), including its view that “school-sponsored or school-endorsed racially segregated aspects of student, academic, and campus life, such as programming, graduation ceremonies, and housing, are legally indefensible.” The FAQ allows that “educational, cultural, or historical observances … or similar events – that celebrate or recognize historical events and contributions and promote awareness” would not violate Title VI but asserts that “extreme practices at a university—such as requiring students to participate in privilege walks, segregating them by race for presentations and discussions with guest speakers, pressuring them to participate in protests or take certain positions on racially charged issues, investigating or sanctioning them for dissenting on racially charged issues through DEI or similar university offices, mandating courses, orientation programs, or trainings that are designed to emphasize and focus on racial stereotypes, and assigning them coursework that requires them to identify by race and then complete tasks differentiated by race—are all forms of school-on-student harassment that could create a hostile environment under Title VI.” It also states that OCR may rely on the three-part McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973) Title VII employment discrimination burden shifting test to “assess indirect evidence of individual discrimination” against students. 

The U.S. Department of Justice announced its “Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism” established by Executive Order, “Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism,” which intends to prioritize “root[ing] out anti-Semitic harassment in schools and on college campuses,” will “be visiting 10 university campuses that have experienced antisemitic incidents since October 2023,” including “Columbia University; George Washington University; Harvard University; Johns Hopkins University; New York University; Northwestern University; the University of California, Los Angeles; the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Minnesota; and the University of Southern California.” 

The American Council on Education (ACE) sent a letter (the Letter) to the U.S. Department of Education (the Department) in response to the Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) published on February 14, 2025, requesting that the Department rescind the DCL. The Letter states that the DCL contains ambiguous language that has led to confusion on campuses about their compliance responsibilities. The Letter further states that it is unreasonable for the Department to require institutions to appropriately respond to the extremely broad reinterpretation of federal law in two weeks and in the absence of additional and necessary guidance.