President Donald Trump, following the recommendation of a national commission on school safety chaired by Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, will repeal the Obama administration's "Dear Colleague Letter" on school discipline. The letter, issued in 2014, advised school superintendents nationwide that racial disparities in suspension rates would be grounds for finding school districts in violation of federal anti-discrimination law, and therefore at risk of losing federal funding.
The directive, cast as a "guidance," in fact formalized a fundamental shift in the Department of Education's approach to civil rights enforcement. Prior to the Dear Colleague Letter, the standard held that civil rights are violated if students are treated differently because of race; for instance, if a black student and a white student both curse at a teacher, it's wrong to suspend the black student and give the white student a warning. The Dear Colleague Letter expanded the standard from disparate treatment to disparate impact; now, if two black students and one white student curse at a teacher, it could be a civil rights violation to punish them all equally.
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