The U.S. Department of Education issued new guidance on Wednesday advising schools against adjusting their student discipline policies to reduce racial disparities. The department’s Office for Civil Rights stated in a letter that modifying these policies for the purpose of "racial balancing" constitutes race discrimination.
This action follows the department’s decision in July 2026 to remove several "disparate impact" regulations. For decades, those rules had prohibited school policies that resulted in discriminatory effects, even if such outcomes were unintended. The shift is part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to dismantle diversity initiatives, which the president has described as discriminatory against white people and males.
Federal civil rights data from 2023 indicates that Black students are disciplined at higher rates than their peers. A report from that year found that Black children in public preschools received out-of-school suspensions at nearly twice the rate of their enrollment. In K-12 schools, Black boys were nearly twice as likely as white boys to be suspended or expelled, while Black girls faced nearly double the rate of in-school and out-of-school suspensions compared to white girls.
A student or parent will notice that schools can no longer change their disciplinary codes for the stated goal of narrowing the gap between how different racial groups are punished. Educators and school districts that previously used race-conscious adjustments to address disparities may now face civil rights investigations if the Education Department determines those changes constitute "racial balancing." Civil rights advocates, including EdTrust, argue this will make it harder to address the harsher discipline long faced by Black students, while the administration maintains the move ensures students are not treated differently based on race.
The removal of these guidelines sets a precedent for how the federal government interprets Title VI, the law prohibiting discrimination in programs receiving federal funds. It moves away from the "disparate impact" standard, which focused on the results of a policy, to a standard that prohibits intentional "racial balancing." Following the issuance of this letter on August 19, 2026, schools must now ensure their current and future disciplinary practices comply with this interpretation to avoid federal scrutiny.