NJ schools department balks at Trump administration's anti-DEI demand

The New Jersey Department of Education said this week it won’t comply with a Trump administration demand to certify it has no “DEI practices in violation of federal law” — telling the federal government it’s not clear what that would mean.

The refusal comes even as the federal Department of Education threatens to withhold funds from states and schools that don’t send such certifications by April 24, and echoes some of the reasons in New York State’s Education Department’s own decision not to send a certification letter. New Jersey schools receive about $1.2 billion in federal assistance annually.

The Garden State’s education department said local districts shouldn’t send such certifications either. Any provided to the New Jersey Department of Education won’t be passed along to the federal government, it said in an announcement this week.

The federal department sent states and school systems a notice earlier this month telling them that they must certify they comply with Title VI, the 1964 civil rights reform that bars federal funding for any programs that discriminate based on race, color or national origin.

The notice went on to say that “any violation of Title VI — including the use of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (‘DEI’) programs to advantage one’s race over another — is impermissible.” The notice came amid the Trump administration’s ongoing effort to not only purge diversity programs from federal agencies, but to pressure private and public educational institutions, housing programs and other federal funding recipients to do the same.

The federal notice said the new certification would be a “material condition for the continued receipt of federal financial assistance,” and it could go after contracts and grants previously awarded to states and schools that don’t send it back.

New Jersey is one of 16 states — including New York — to refuse the anti-DEI certification so far, according to a roundup by Education Week. Another 16 have said they intend to sign it, with the remainder either not yet responding or saying they’re reviewing the directive.

New Jersey Education Commissioner Kevin Dehmer, in a response to the federal government this week, said the state already certified to the federal government in 2017 that it’s in compliance with Title VI, and local districts reaffirm their compliance yearly as part of a grant application process that the federal government reviewed in 2019 without citing any issues.

He also said the federal government hadn’t made clear what about DEI programs would make them illegal.

“Furthermore, while [the federal education department’s] request references ‘certain DEI practices’ or ‘illegal DEI,’ it does not define those terms, and there are no known federal or New Jersey state laws prohibiting diversity, equity or inclusion,” Dehmer wrote. He said other requests to certify compliance “with such nebulous concepts” have been enjoined by federal courts.

Dehmer also cited reporting that under the first Trump administration, the Department of Education routinely encouraged diversity.

He said New Jersey would continue to abide by “well-settled legal precedent concerning Title VI.”