The United States Department of Justice seeks to join a federal lawsuit that accuses the Los Angeles school district of discriminating against white students.
At stake is a long-standing effort to help disadvantaged students of color in Los Angeles by providing somewhat smaller class sizes to the vast majority of schools, leaving out campuses with larger numbers of white students.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in January by the 1776 Project Foundation, takes aim at a decades-long effort to combat the harms of segregation without requiring families to attend integrated schools.
The nation's second-largest school district is acting illegally under the California and federal Constitutions, the lawsuit alleges.
The Justice Department agrees and wants to participate in the litigation because “the Attorney General of the United States reviewed this action and determined that it is a case of general public importance,” according to the court petition filed Wednesday.
“This case will provide relief to plaintiff members but will also relieve the entire LAUSD student population from the 'injury' of 'being forced to compete in a race-based system that can harm the[m].'”
Assistant. Lawyer. Gen. Harmeet K. Dhillon of the department's Civil Rights Division was among several Trump administration officials who commented in a news release.
“Los Angeles County students should never be classified or treated differently because of their race. Yet this school district is doing exactly that by providing benefits that treat students, based on their race, as if they have learning disabilities,” Dhillon said. “Racial discrimination is illegal and un-American, and this Civil Rights Division will fight to ensure that all LAUSD students are treated equally under the law.”
An LAUSD spokesperson said the district “remains firmly committed to ensuring that all students have meaningful access to enriching educational services and opportunities.”
Los Angeles school board member Nick Melvoin said the Justice Department is wrong in its perception of fairness for students in its claim to “defend equality in our schools.”
He said his intervention in the lawsuit “is not about justice; it is part of a broader effort to roll back the civil rights of our children. The programs were designed to address real inequalities and are driving historic progress for students of color and for all students. We will not be intimidated and will stand up for what works.”
The lawsuit claims that 600 campuses have an illegal advantage, while about 100 do not. The lawsuit alleges that students at the targeted schools receive benefits that include smaller class sizes and also receive preferential treatment to enter coveted magnet programs.
“The District engages in, and publicly promotes, a program of overt discrimination against a new minority: white students,” the lawsuit states.
The Trump administration's action is in line with its general interpretation of school anti-discrimination laws, asserting that programs and services that specifically benefit students of color harm white or other students not included in the program. Under threat of losing federal funding, universities and school districts have taken steps to end, rename or reorganize diversity, equity and inclusion programs. California officials are among those opposing federal mandates in court.
The U.S. Supreme Court has banned racial preferences in the college admissions process, encouraging other crackdowns on diversity efforts or programs designed to help particular groups of students.
Pedro Noguera, dean of USC's Rossier School of Education, has called litigation like the lawsuit filed by the 1776 Project Foundation an “increasingly common” tactic by conservative groups “who want to claim reverse discrimination based on the idea that helping low-income children of color harms wealthy white students. However, there is no empirical evidence to support this claim.”
Magnet schools are special programs established decades ago to promote voluntary integration, largely by enticing white students to leave their neighborhood schools. Magnet enrollment was once strictly tied to racial quotas. This framework often worked to the advantage of white students, because there were relatively fewer white students competing for the number of magnet spaces reserved for them.
LAUSD is now about 74% Latino, 10% white, 7% Black and 3.3% Asian, according to state data. Total enrollment is approximately 380,000.
Today, magnet programs have become a general recruiting strategy in a school system with declining enrollment. Some magnets are virtually all students of color because few if any white students apply.
Magnet funds are spent primarily on providing bus transportation for students to attend these special programs outside of their neighborhoods.
A separate component of Los Angeles Unified's educational efforts includes providing additional support to schools that are at least 70% non-white. As described on the LAUSD website, these schools have smaller class sizes. According to the lawsuit, the difference is up to 25 students per teacher, compared to an average of 34.5 per teacher.
Broadly speaking, the district currently allocates additional resources based primarily on which schools perform the worst on academic measures, not race.
Federal funds also typically benefit such schools through Title I funds, which are reserved for schools with high concentrations of poverty. These additional federal resources are not based on race.
