Discrimination on the basis of race is wrong and, more than that, illegal. That's the underlying message of this letter sent out by the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights last week. This is an important statement so rather than pick out snippets as reported in other news outlets, let's just go to the source.

In recent years, American educational institutions have discriminated against students on the basis of race, including white and Asian students, many of whom come from disadvantaged backgrounds and low-income families. These institutions’ embrace of pervasive and repugnant race-based preferences and other forms of racial discrimination have emanated throughout every facet of academia. For example, colleges, universities, and K-12 schools have routinely used race as a factor in admissions, financial aid, hiring, training, and other institutional programming. In a shameful echo of a darker period in this country’s history, many American schools and universities even encourage segregation by race at graduation ceremonies and in dormitories and other facilities.

Educational institutions have toxically indoctrinated students with the false premise that the United States is built upon “systemic and structural racism” and advanced discriminatory policies and practices. Proponents of these discriminatory practices have attempted to further justify them—particularly during the last four years—under the banner of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (“DEI”), smuggling racial stereotypes and explicit race-consciousness into everyday training, programming, and discipline.  But under any banner, discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin is, has been, and will continue to be illegal.

The letter then walks through the Supreme Court case, Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which put an end to Affirmative Action in college admissions and argues that the decision applies more broadly. This is a full broadside against DEI as a concept.

Although SFFA addressed admissions decisions, the Supreme Court’s holding applies more broadly. At its core, the test is simple: If an educational institution treats a person of one race differently than it treats another person because of that person’s race, the educational institution violates the law. Federal law thus prohibits covered entities from using race in decisions pertaining to admissions, hiring, promotion, compensation, financial aid, scholarships, prizes, administrative support, discipline, housing, graduation ceremonies, and all other aspects of student, academic, and campus life. Put simply, educational institutions may neither separate or segregate students based on race, nor distribute benefits or burdens based on race...

Other programs discriminate in less direct, but equally insidious, ways. DEI programs, for example, frequently preference certain racial groups and teach students that certain racial groups bear unique moral burdens that others do not. Such programs stigmatize students who belong to particular racial groups based on crude racial stereotypes. Consequently, they deny students the ability to participate fully in the life of a school. 

The Department will no longer tolerate the overt and covert racial discrimination that has become widespread in this Nation’s educational institutions. The law is clear: treating students differently on the basis of race to achieve nebulous goals such as diversity, racial balancing, social justice, or equity is illegal under controlling Supreme Court precedent.

All students are entitled to a school environment free from discrimination. The Department is committed to ensuring those principles are a reality.

From there, the letter goes on to say that the DOE plans to "assess compliance" with this understanding of the law at every level from kindergarten up to state universities. This paragraph in particular is aimed directly at high schools and some universities seeking to workaround the SFFA v. Harvard decision.

All educational institutions are advised to: (1) ensure that their policies and actions comply with existing civil rights law; (2) cease all efforts to circumvent prohibitions on the use of race by relying on proxies or other indirect means to accomplish such ends; and (3) cease all reliance on third-party contractors, clearinghouses, or aggregators that are being used by institutions in an effort to circumvent prohibited uses of race.

As discussed here, some elite high schools around the country have resorted to using zip codes or other proxies for race as a way to get around the SFFA decision.

Boston Parent Coalition for Academic Excellence  v. School Committee is another proxy discrimination case. There, exam scores traditionally determined admission to three prominent Boston high schools, including the famous Boston Latin School, founded in 1635 as America’s first public school. However, in 2019, the school board adopted a plan that allocated 20 percent of magnet seats based on grade point average and the rest based on zip codes.

Boston’s school board did not try to disguise its racial motivations. One working group member said that the admissions changes were meant to address “historic racial inequities,” and the School Committee’s chair was caught on a live microphone mocking Chinese American surnames. Because Asian American and white students in Boston tend to live in certain zip codes, the new admissions procedure meant that students from these groups went from receiving 61 percent of the seats available in magnet programs to just over half of them. Boston Parent Coalition lost at the 1st Circuit and will petition the Supreme Court for certiorari this spring.

Getting back to the letter, it ends with a clear penalty for those schools that refuse to follow the law: "Institutions that fail to comply with federal civil rights law may, consistent with applicable law, face potential loss of federal funding." As the LA Times pointed out, federal funding is a significant amount of money for a state like California.

California received about $16.3 billion in total federal funding last year for its 5.8 million K-12 public school students, according to Education Data Initiative, which compiles information from government sources.

As you'd expect, reactions to the letter are all over the map. Chris Rufo celebrated it saying, "DEI delenda est."

We’ve been fighting for this for the past five years. It’s finally happening. DEI delenda est. https://t.co/LQsMiAsteJ

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) February 15, 2025

And Elon Musk also celebrated it.

Institutionalized racism & sexism is no longer allowed https://t.co/phSPQFdRvV

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 15, 2025

The question now is how quickly attempts to actually cut federal funding on the basis this letter spells out will be tied up in courts. And how long after that before the entire question makes its way back to the Supreme Court.

Shaun Harper, a USC professor of education, public policy and business, said the message — a sharp turn from educational civil rights enforcement under President Biden — is “guaranteed to have a chilling effect.”

He also questioned the whether the Department of Education’s letter, which cites the affirmative action case for a “framework” that “applies more broadly” beyond admissions, is legally sound.

“The Supreme Court did not outlaw race-conscious campus programs and resources. Instead it ruled that race can’t be used as a factor in determining admission,” Harper said. “Hence, the dear colleague letter is interpretive overreach.”

Even if SCOTUS eventually sides with carve outs for certain specific behavior, such as affinity groups based on race, that doesn't mean a decision stemming from this letter won't significantly expand the territory over which SFFA is considered the operative standard. In other words, fighting this case seems likely to result in more losses for DEI than gains at this point. We'll probably need to wait a year or two to find out.