Administration’s Menacing Attack on Black People

I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.

Angela Davis                                                                                       political activist, author and scholar

The chaotic, unrelenting release of policy statements and actions by this administration, many of which violate the Constitution, make it impossible to keep up, reflect, and respond. One underreported topic is the administration’s menacing attack on Black people in America.

The Letter

On February 14, 2025, the Department of Education sent a letter, known as a “Dear Colleague Letter,” in the form of a threatening directive, to schools, including preschool, elementary, secondary, colleges and universities which receive federal funds. While this letter has been extensively written about, what has been overlooked in much of the discussion, is the extent to which it targets Black people. The 2½ page letter begins by stating that racial discrimination is “illegal and morally reprehensible” and ends thanking schools for their commitment to creating an educational environment free from racial discrimination.

The thrust of the letter, however, addresses what it views as racial discrimination against white people. The administration referred to a US Supreme Court case, Students for Fair Admissions (SSFA) v Harvard, decided in 2023, in which SSFA argued that the admissions programs used by Harvard and the University of North Carolina discriminated against white and Asian students. The Court ruled in SSFA’s favor, ruling the programs unconstitutional because they were not narrowly tailored to the schools’ stated goals. Harvard’s stated goals included preparing graduates “to adapt to an increasingly pluralistic society” and “producing new knowledge stemming from diverse outlooks.” While SSFA was about admissions policies, the letter states that it will apply the case’s holding to racial considerations in financial aid, hiring, training, and other programing.

The most alarming aspect of the letter is its use of anti-discrimination law as a weapon against Black people, by erasing their history. The letter states that educational institutions “have toxically indoctrinated students with the false premise that the United States is built upon ‘systematic and structural racism’ and advanced discriminatory policies and practices. Proponents of these discriminatory practices have attempted to further justify them…” 

Take this in – the Department of Education proclaimed that it is now discriminatory to teach that the United States was built upon systematic and structural racism.  

This directive is dangerous, racist, and made with an intent to undermine our democracy. Authoritarian leaders take and maintain power by dehumanizing people – controlling their minds, spirits, bodies, resources, and power. They stoke fear, hatred, and division. Antidotes to authoritarianism are knowledge, critical thinking, empathy, compassion, kindness and human connections within and beyond our personal tribes.

Systematic and Structural Racism

The facts below describe the racist systems and structures in our nation’s history.

·         slavery pre-dating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence and American Revolution

·         adopting the Constitution which stated: (1) that an enslaved person shall count as “three-fifths of all other Persons” for the purposes of representation and taxation; and (2) that an enslaved person who escapes to another state must be “delivered,” upon request to the slaveowner

·         allowing white people to brutally kill, often by lynching, beat and injure Black people and burn down their houses without civil or criminal penalties

·         allowing white people to permanently break up Black families

·         allowing white people to use enslaved Black people to do heavy farm labor, cook, clean, take care of white children, and produce wealth for the sole benefit of white people

·         enacting Jim Crow laws requiring racial segregation of schools, water fountains, swimming pools, toilets, and public transportation

·         excluding Black people from government benefits including some New Deal programs and the GI bill

·         prohibiting Black people from voting and after laws were changed, using poll taxes, literacy tests, voter suppression laws and allowing local officials to abuse power to prevent Black people from voting

·         allowing government officials to abuse their power by making false arrests, bringing false charges, failing to bring criminal charges when Black people are the victims of crime, and engaging in police brutality, including murder 

·         allowing the use of redlining and restrictive covenants to prevent or make it difficult for Black people to purchase homes, obtain loans and insurance

·         preventing Black people from having access to higher education or entering professions      

·         allowing discrimination against Black people in employment, housing, public accommodations, and spaces, education, military service and health care   

By examining the systematic and structural nature of this history, students will better understand racism, why it continues to exist, and develop solutions for eliminating it. It can also lead to an appreciation of other people’s struggles, compassion for those who are hurting, and our common humanity.

Studying this history teaches students about the methods people used to change laws and improve our nation’s treatment of Black people, along with the ways the U.S. Constitution, if followed and enforced, provides mechanisms for seeking justice. Ironically, the administration’s letter will appear in history books as another example of structural and systematic racism.

Learning about the oppression and the generational struggle for freedom and civil rights facilitates an examination of crucial questions: What does it mean to have a democracy? What kind of society do we want to live it? What are our obligations to others? How do we balance collective action for the common good and individual rights? How can we resolve disagreements between people, cultures, organizations, and nations?

It also requires students to engage in critical thinking by examining our country, sifting through the good, the bad and what lies in between. A society needs to understand its history to be able to understand the present and how to influence the future.

The Threat to Schools

The DOE directive stated that it would begin assessing schools’ compliance with the law, as described above,  within 14 days and threatened that noncompliance could result in a loss of federal funds. It also included a link for people to report a school’s noncompliance.    

On February 28, 2025, fourteen days after the initial letter, the administration issued a list of FAQs about the letter. The most disturbing aspect of the FAQs is that it did not walk back its proclamation that teaching this nation’s treatment of Black people constitutes racial discrimination.

It did include a general statement asserting that the February 14 letter does not restrict First Amendment rights, adding that the Department of Education may not exercise control over the content of school curricula. This assertion however, is followed by:  “However, the 1st Amendment rights of students, faculty, and staff, and the curricular prerogatives of states and local school agencies do not relieve schools of their Title VI obligations,” which include not creating a hostile environment through race-based policies and stereotypes. Yet because the administration stated in its directive that teaching about America’s horrific treatment of Black people is discriminatory, they are clearly abridging teachers’ right to Free Speech, along with distorting historical truth.

The Law

SFFA, the Harvard admissions case, overturned 45 years of precedent about affirmative action. The decision was controversial, but it is now the law. It is not unusual for a new administration that supports a U.S. Supreme Court decision to issue a letter incorporating that decision into its policies and discuss how it might reasonably apply the case to related topics. For example, given that SFFA, was a case about a student-related administrative policy, it raises the question of whether the court might use similar reasoning in a case involving a different student-related administrative policy. But SSFA was not a case about course curricula.  

In February 2025, the American Federal of Teachers and the American Sociological Association, https://www.aft.org/press-release/educators-sue-challenge-trump-administrations-efforts-weaponize-civil-rights-laws filed a lawsuit against the Department of Education and in March, the ACLU and National Education Association filed a similar lawsuit. https://assets.aclu.org/live/uploads/2025/03/1.pdf. I will be writing about these lawsuits for a future blog.

The Threat to our Nation

As illustrated above in the powerful, but incomplete description of our country’s systematic and structural racism, this racism predates the Declaration of Independence and continues today.

Even today, three words – Black Lives Matter – invoke rage, censorship, and violence. This evidences the fact that racism is woven into our cultural fabric. This does not mean that the majority of people in this country are overtly racist. It also does not erase or negate the significant progress that has been made through activism and the legal system. In fact, that progress reflects the best that our country offers – a Constitution that contains the rights to free speech, association, assembly, religion, and the press; the right to informally and formally criticize our government and to be protected by due process and equal protection; and criminal law protections.  

This highlights the value of a comprehensive public education system which teaches people the notion that our government is capable of good and bad actions, as are other institutions, groups and individuals. This type of education has been available to so many, and that it contains mechanisms for improvement is a point of pride for our nation. 

Ensuring that that we can read, research, write, speak, and teach this history protects not only the lives of Black people, but everyone. It strengthens our Constitution and adds value to our culture and our lives.    

Take Action

Freedom is never given; it is won.

                                                                                       A. Philip Randolph                                                                               labor leader & civil rights activist

1.          School Board – connect with people in your community and attend meetings to show support or speak about issues of interest; run for school board.

2.          ACLU – get involved or donate; see “take action” on website https://www.aclu.org/action the ACLU has been fighting to preserve individual rights and against government abuse of power since 1919; they are working long hours trying to preserve our democracy; read their history:

In the years following World War I, America was gripped by the fear that the Communist Revolution that had taken place in Russia would spread to the United States. As is often the case when fear outweighs rational debate, civil liberties paid the price. In November 1919 and January 1920, in what notoriously became known as the “Palmer Raids,” Attorney General Mitchell Palmer began rounding up and deporting so-called radicals. Thousands of people were arrested without warrants and without regard to constitutional protections against unlawful search and seizure. Those arrested were brutally treated and held in horrible conditions. In the face of these egregious civil liberties abuses, a small group of people decided to take a stand, and thus was born the American Civil Liberties Union.

3.          If you haven’t done so, sign-up for my newsletter at the bottom of my blog page https://www.christineyared.com/blog and tell someone else to do the same.

Christine Yared