The Department of Education is scrapping Obama-era regulations that forced schools to discipline students differently based on race.
The move follows the Department of Justice’s December decision to eliminate disparate-impact liability under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. Education Secretary Linda McMahon announced Thursday the department is rescinding multiple disparate-impact provisions.
Disparate impact theory claims a neutral policy is discriminatory if it affects one demographic group more than another — even when the policy is applied evenhandedly with no intent to discriminate.
Under Obama, schools faced federal civil rights investigations if their discipline data showed they punished minority students more frequently than white students — regardless of behavior patterns or rule violations.
“While disparate-impact liability has been used for decades, the Obama Administration weaponized it as a tool for the radical left, forcing schools to make race a factor when considering disciplinary actions.”
The result was predictable: schools cooked the books to avoid federal scrutiny. Some refused to enforce rules against minority students. Others overcorrected by targeting white students to balance the numbers.
The ideology behind disparate-impact discipline guarantees unequal treatment. If one demographic misbehaves more frequently, enforcement must ignore actual behavior to hit equity targets. Students who deserve discipline escape consequences solely because of their race.
Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey said the change restores fairness.
“A child is so much more than a number in a data set. The left’s notion of ‘equity’ should never prevent teachers from keeping their classrooms and students safe.”
The department said deregulation “will ensure equal educational opportunities and meritocracy for all students.” The move implements Trump’s April 2025 executive order restoring equality of opportunity and meritocracy.
That executive order argues disparate-impact liability violates the Constitution’s equal-protection guarantee and undermines merit. Race-based favoritism runs afoul of equal treatment under law — what the order calls “a bedrock principle of the United States.”
Before this change, schools tracked discipline enforcement by race. A dataset showing more enforcement against one group than another triggered threats of federal civil rights violations. Schools responded by ignoring misbehavior from minorities and punishing white students more harshly to hit equity quotas.
Richey said the regulatory changes “will help ensure fair enforcement of Title VI, as intended by Congress.”
The Trump administration is dismantling equity-driven enforcement across federal agencies. Schools can now discipline students based on behavior — not racial balancing formulas designed to achieve statistical parity.
