A parents group is asking the Trump administration to investigate Chicago Public Schools over its racially-focused success plan only for black students.
Parents Defending Education filed a civil rights complaint with the Department of Education on Friday requesting a probe into Chicago Public Schools over its “Black Student Success Plan.” Parents Defending Education believes that the district is likely violating federal civil rights law and the Fourteenth Amendment.
The plan was developed with input from the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) staff for Chicago Public Schools, including Chief Equity Officer Fatima Cooke.
“Chicago Public Schools has identified a critical priority to improve outcomes for Black students in the district. While there have been efforts to expand access, there remains persistent gaps in opportunities for Black students,” according to notes compiled by the developers of the plan.
“This working group is charged with engaging in a deep equity-focused planning process that will result in a comprehensive set of targeted recommendations aimed at determining the appropriate inputs that support closing outcome gaps for Black students in the district,” they added.
The developers of the plan also said that a “scarcity of Black educators” in the district was contributing “to a lack of shared real-time knowledge.”
Included in the justification for the plan was data discussing the poor academic performance of black students. In its complaint, Parents Defending Education noted that the data included showed that other races, like Hispanics, were struggling at similar or greater levels in things like reading.
Black Student Success Plan.
“Although the slideshow suggests improvements only for black students, it acknowledges that Chicago students of all races struggle academically,” the complaint from Parents Defending Education President Nicole Neily said. “In other words, CPS is failing students of all races and ethnicities, which makes this racially segregated program all the more egregious.”
Neily wrote that Chicago Public Schools’ “Black Student Success Plan” likely violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prevents federal funds from going toward programs that discriminate on the basis of race.
The complaint also noted that the Department of Education sent out guidance last week warning schools to steer clear of distributing programs based on race.
“Put simply, educational institutions may neither separate or segregate students based on race, nor distribute benefits or burdens based on race,” the department wrote in a “Dear Colleague” letter on February 14.
Neily asked for the department to “conduct a full and complete Title VI audit” of Chicago Public Schools to determine what other racially-based policies may be in place.
Parents Defending Education has previously been successful in challenging a similar program put out by Los Angeles Unified School District. That district had to ensure that its student success plan was available to all races after originally rolling out a “Black Student Achievement Plan.”
President Donald Trump signed an executive order last month directing the removal of “anti-American ideologies” from public schools and ending federal funding for grants or contracts pushing leftist ideology.
