Education Department withdraws from plan to address discipline disparities for Native students

WASHINGTON — The Education Department has withdrawn from an agreement to address disparities in discipline for Native American students at a South Dakota school system, saying it was wrongly rooted in efforts to promote diversity, equity and inclusion.

The decision reflects a shift in interpretation of anti-discrimination laws under President Donald Trump's administration, which is planning to review other agreements the department's Office for Civil Rights has struck with school systems around the U.S.

At issue in the Rapid City Area School District were questions of harsh discipline and access to advanced coursework for Native students, who have been less likely than their white peers to be in high-level classes. A federal investigation found Native students were roughly four times as likely to be suspended and five times as likely to be arrested compared with their white peers.

Last month, the Education Department told the district it would close its compliance review, saying in a letter the agreement violated civil rights laws because DEI was at its foundation.

Some parents who participated in listening sessions with the Office for Civil Rights said they felt their effort had been wasted.

''If there's a fight, instead of restorative practices, in our schools the first thing they do is call the police who are right there in the schools as resource officers," said Valeriah Big Eagle, a parent of three children in the school district and a leader at NDN Collective, an Indigenous advocacy group. ''We know the school-to-prison pipeline is real for our kids, and the only way we can address that is by promoting restorative practices.''

The Education Department backed away from the Rapid City case because the resolution focused on racial balancing and tasked its lawyers with ''micromanaging'' how the schools disciplined students, a department official said.

Under Trump, the Education Department has threatened to cut funding from schools that refuse to disavow DEI, which his administration has described as discriminatory and illegal. The Office for Civil Rights, which was hit hard by reductions in staff, meantime has prioritized investigations into allegations of antisemitism.

The rollback of the South Dakota case reflects the department's efforts to control school-level decisions on diversity initiatives, regardless of their legal basis, said Michael Pillera, director of educational equity issues at the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

''It does feel unprecedented, and it does feel extreme,'' Pillera said.

The Trump administration has rescinded one other civil rights resolution agreement with a school district, a case involving books removed from a Forsyth County School District library in Georgia. But the department official said they will be reviewing others.

The Office for Civil Rights enters into hundreds of resolution agreements a year with districts in cases involving racial harassment, disproportionate discipline, disability discrimination and gender discrimination. It can require corrective action ranging from resolving access issues for individual students with disabilities to sweeping audits of district-wide practices.

''The question is, do we care what the effect of discrimination is or not?" King said. ''If we're seeing they're causing disproportionate harm to some groups of students, we need to be asking hard questions about whether or not we can justify those policies.''

Rapid City schools say the reforms will continue, but some parents have doubts

The Rapid City investigation began in 2010 and was closed in 2024 under the Biden administration.

In interviews with federal investigators, a former superintendent said high truancy rates owed to some Native American tribes not valuing education, and that they operate on ''Indian time,'' arriving late. The board fired her last summer over the derogatory remarks.

In a statement, the district's acting superintendent, Cory Strasser, said neither the board or district leadership were involved in the decision to terminate the resolution agreement. He said that the district had already done much of the work required by the resolution agreement, which ranged from training in implicit bias to better tracking of discipline data. He said the work will continue without federal oversight.

Some in the community worry the district on its own will not follow through on the recommendations. Nick Tilsen, founder of the Rapid City-based NDN Collective, said it has been flooded with calls from concerned parents and students.

''The agreement exists because the Rapid City Area school board needed to be held accountable to implementing those provisions,'' Tilsen said. ''They can't just simply say that they're doing it, because the data already shows that they're not implementing these things.''

Darren Thompson, media relations director at the Native nonprofit Sacred Defense Fund, said it is the latest in a series of federal decisions that affects tribal citizens but did not solicit input from any tribal communities. He added the Native American population in South Dakota is unique because many have distinctly Indian surnames, like ''Black Elk,'' which can make them targets of discrimination in schools or when seeking employment. ___

Associated Press writer Collin Binkley in Washington contributed to this report. Raza reported from Sioux Falls, S.D.

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