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U.S. District Court Issued Preliminary Injunction Against U.S. Department of Education’s “Dear Colleague” Letter
By Tina Traster
On Feb. 14, 2025, the United States Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights sent a “Dear Colleague” letter to New York school boards threatening to pull school funding from states that did not eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
Other state’s local boards received similar “Dear Colleague” letters, but New York was the first state to publicly repudiate the demand. On March 5, New York State Attorney General Letitia James, along with a coalition of 14 attorneys general, issued guidance to K-!2 schools, colleges, and universities outlining the benefits, legality, and importance of DEI and accessibility policies and practices in education.
In response to worry from some educational institutions that had received the letter, James wrote that their “lawful efforts to seek and support diverse, equitable, inclusive and accessible educational experiences cannot be rendered illegal by an Executive Order or a letter from DOE – neither of which can make or change the law.”
Nevertheless, school board members and administrators in Rockland County admit feeling unsettled by the demand. However, none seem to have abandoned policies and practices that have been in place for years.
Rockland BOCES and the eight component school districts of Rockland County are providing this response when asked whether the Dear Colleague letter had initiated a pullback on DEI.
“All public school districts in New York State fall under the governance of the New York State Education Department (NYSED),” said the BOCES spokesperson. “As of this date, NYSED has not issued any policy, guidance, directive or mandate to cease practices that advance diversity, equity and inclusion.”
Dear Colleague letters are not entirely unusual. A “Dear Colleague Letter” from the U.S. Department of Education is a type of official communication used to provide guidance, clarification, or updates to educational institutions receiving federal financial assistance. These letters don’t have the force of law — but they signal how the department interprets existing laws and regulations.
In the one dated Feb. 14, the Trump administration’s Education Department wrote: “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.”
The precedent refers to the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which said the use of racial preferences in college admissions is unlawful.
Instructing New York’s School districts, James wrote: “The New York State Education Department (NYSED) has certified, on multiple occasions, that it does and will comply with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its implementing regulations. . . Given the fact that you are already in possession of guarantees by NYSED that it has and will comply with Title VI, no further certification will be forthcoming.”
Nineteen states, including New York, filed a federal lawsuit seeking to block DOE from withholding funding based on an April 3rd requirement that states certify their compliance with civil rights law and that local education agencies make the same certification.
On April 27, the U.S. District Court of New Hampshire issued a preliminary injunction against the U.S. Department of Education’s Feb. 14th Dear Colleague letter. The ruling came in a lawsuit brought by the National Education Association (NEA), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and others, which challenged the letter as impermissibly vague, a violation of the First Amendment, and a violation of the Administrative Procedures Act.
In response to a request for a temporary restraining order, the parties agreed that USDOE will not demand Title VI assurances, or “initiate enforcement action,” until after April 24, 2025.
The NEA called the ruling a “victory for students, parents and educators,” noting that it “blocks ED’s unprecedented and unlawful attempt to restrict discussions and programs on diversity, equity, and inclusion in educational institutions, and its threat to withhold federal funding for engaging in such efforts.”
Meanwhile, existing policies continue unabated in districts, including the Nyack School District.
“For over 25 years, the Nyack school community has been committed to understanding how race impacts our education system,” said Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Lizzette Ruiz-Giovinazzi. “This work is ongoing as we examine our practices, study our data, and continue to uncover root causes behind persistent disparities in student outcomes. Like many districts, we see patterns in our data when it’s broken down by race—and addressing these patterns is essential. This work remains a priority for our leadership team and all educators until student outcomes can no longer be predicted by race.”
Ruiz-Giovinazzi said the district has and continues to document milestones and timelines for its equity work to help “better understand how to change our policies and practices, not ‘fix kids’.”
The district in March hired Dr. Audrey Brutis as Director of Equity and K12 Curriculum and Instruction. Her annual salary is $177,043.
Insiders in several Rockland districts say they have not back-peddled long-established policies, but they are watching the situation because so much of normal governance has been upended since Trump began his second term. Many say this is something they’ve been doing long before DEI became a catchphrase.
While school board members and administrators are aware of efforts to disrupt DEI, school districts across the state and in Rockland County are holding firm.
“No, we have not changed any of our practices,” said Dr. Erik Gundersen, Superintendent of Schools for the Suffern Central School District. “Our district remains committed to our mission of educating for personal excellence for all our students.”
In related news, The NYSED last week also rejected the Trump administration’s demand that the state reverse a ban on Native American mascots, challenging the federal government’s interpretation of civil rights law.
The White House has accused the state of illegal discrimination, objecting to the state’s requirement that school districts two-year-old ban to banish mascots that appropriate Native American culture or risk losing funding. The latest conflict arose after parents in Massapequa, Long Island protested the elimination of the district’s name, “the Chiefs,” and the Trump administration ordered the state to allow all districts to choose their preferred mascots.
Daniel Morton-Bentley, the deputy commissioner for legal affairs at the state education agency has questioned the administration’s involvement in a state issue, noting that efforts by district leaders in Massapequa to challenge the mascot ban were previously rejected in Brooklyn federal court.
