(The Epoch Times)—The U.S. Education Department on Monday said it has canceled $600 million in grants for educator training programs that promote “divisive ideologies.”
The grants had been awarded to teacher preparation programs that trained future educators in what the department said were “inappropriate and unnecessary topics,” such as critical race theory, which promotes the fundamental framework view that racism is embedded in all institutions and aspects of society; diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI); and social justice activism. Some of the defunded programs also included race-based teacher recruitment and staffing strategies, according to the department.
The department provided examples of the defunded training programs, including those that required educators to acknowledge “systemic inequities” like racism and “critically reassess” their own teaching practices. Others offered professional development workshops on “Building Cultural Competence,” “Dismantling Racial Bias,” and “Centering Equity in the Classroom.”
Some initiatives guided teachers to “interrupt racial marginalization and oppression of students.” There were also programs promoting an “abolitionist pedagogy” which, according to Bettina L. Love, the professor who coined the term, applies a “critical race lens” to classrooms and encourages teachers to organize marches and boycotts against their colleagues perceived as “racist, homophobic, or Islamophobic.”
The decision to cut these grants aligns with the broader cost-cutting measures led by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an advisory body led by Elon Musk, and with President Donald Trump’s ongoing efforts to dismantle DEI initiatives across the federal government.
Trump on Jan. 21 signed an executive order directing government educational institutions to end all DEI efforts.
“Illegal DEI and DEIA policies not only violate the text and spirit of our longstanding Federal civil-rights laws, they also undermine our national unity, as they deny, discredit, and undermine the traditional American values of hard work, excellence, and individual achievement in favor of an unlawful, corrosive, and pernicious identity-based spoils system,” the order read. “The Federal Government is charged with enforcing our civil-rights laws. The purpose of this order is to ensure that it does so by ending illegal preferences and discrimination.”
A study by Parents Defending Education, an independent organization that rallies against ideological indoctrinations in K-12 schools, found that since 2021, the Education Department has spent at least $1 billion on various DEI-related initiatives. That includes approximately $490 million on DEI hiring efforts, $343 million on DEI programming, and $170 million on DEI-related mental health programs.
Over the weekend, the Education Department reaffirmed its stance that DEI initiatives conflict with federal non-discrimination laws. Its civil rights enforcement division warned that failure to ensure compliance could result in a loss of federal funding.
“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,” Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights, wrote in a letter sent to the education departments in all 50 states.
While emphasizing the obligations under Title VI, the federal law prohibiting discrimination based on race for institutions that receive federal dollars, the letter also referenced the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 decision, which found it unconstitutional for public and private colleges to use racial preferences in admissions.
“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,” the letter said.
Over the weekend, the Education Department reaffirmed its stance that DEI initiatives conflict with federal non-discrimination laws. Its civil rights enforcement division warned that failure to ensure compliance could result in a loss of federal funding.
Independent Journalism Is Dying
Ever since President Trump’s miraculous victory, we’ve heard an incessant drumbeat about how legacy media is dying. This is true. The people have awakened to the reality that they’re being lied to by the self-proclaimed “Arbiters of Truth” for the sake of political expediency, corporate self-protection, and globalist ambitions.
But even as independent journalism rises to fill the void left by legacy media, there is still a huge challenge. Those at the top of independent media like Joe Rogan, Dan Bongino, and Tucker Carlson are thriving and rightly so. They have earned their audience and the financial rewards that come from it. They’ve taken risks and worked hard to get to where they are.
For “the rest of us,” legacy media and their proxies are making it exceptionally difficult to survive, let alone thrive. They still have a stranglehold over the “fact checkers” who have a dramatic impact on readership and viewership. YouTube, Facebook, and Google still stifle us. The freer speech platforms like Rumble and 𝕏 can only reward so many of their popular content creators. For independent journalists on the outside looking in, our only recourse is to rely on affiliates and sponsors.
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Independent media is the future. In many ways, that future is already here. While the phrase, “the more the merrier,” does not apply to this business because there are still some bad actors in the independent media field, there are many great ones that do not get nearly enough attention. We hope to change that one content creator at a time.
Thank you and God Bless,
JD Rucker
