Q&A – Did the Palm Beach County School District Violate Florida’s DEI Law? - Driven By Braman Motorcars
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Today’s Entry: @brianmuddradio How could the PBC School District still have had a DEI program? Wasn’t that banned by the state years ago?
Bottom Line: Today’s question is in response to the news that the Palm Beach County school district adopted an emergency rule this week to eliminate its DEI policies, including directives pertaining to recruitment and hiring practices, the transferring of students between schools, the handling/coaching of extracurricular activities, vendors who receive priority and the school district’s auditing. The changes were codified in Wednesday’s meeting by the school district for the next 90 days.
Before addressing today’s question, I think it’s worth taking a step back to realize just how ingrained these policies have been in our schools. When you look at the list of revisions there literally wasn’t an aspect of the School District’s business that hadn’t been impacted by DEI directives. From the employees the school district hired, to the coaches who coach teams and even auditing...auditing?! I think this is instructive insight into the extent to which discriminatory policies have permeated all aspects of the education system.
During the many debates about DEI and related left-wing policies in recent years a common argument to maintain the status quo had been that DEI and gender ideology impacts were being blown out of proportion. What the Palm Beach County School District just held an emergency session to address, illustrates that if anything – it's likely more pervasive than many DEI-opponents even knew. That’s also potential insight into the extent to which it’s ingrained in other woke institutions and companies as well. As for how it is that the Palm Beach County School District was still operating with DEI policies until this week...
Florida passed two laws in recent years that placed restrictions or outright bans on DEI-related policies within the state. The law that gained the most attention and that drew the hottest debate was 2022’s Individual Freedom Act, or what became known as The STOP WOKE Act. As it pertained to education, the Act wasn’t focused on how school districts conducted their business, but rather what was being taught in the classroom.
Specific to K-12 education the law prohibited instruction that:
- Suggests individuals are inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive based on race, color, sex, or national origin.
- Implies people bear responsibility or should feel guilt for past actions by others of the same race or sex.
- Promotes discomfort, guilt, or distress due to one’s race or sex.
- Claims privilege or oppression is determined by race, sex, or national origin.
What it didn’t do was specifically ban Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives in Florida’s schools. In 2023 there was a law that did explicitly ban DEI initiatives – the Higher Education law, however as the name of the law suggests – the DEI ban only applied to colleges and universities across the state. Currently there is no explicit ban of DEI polices for Florida’s grade schools. That’s how the Palm Beach County School District was able to retain their DEI initiatives until this week. So, about that...
What brought about the sudden change in DEI policies is money. One of President Trump’s early executive orders banned the use of federal funds to entities with DEI programs in place. In February the U.S. Department of Education put out the directive to states that the president’s order will be upheld and enforcement will soon begin. Specifically, schools were to come into compliance with the Civil Rights Act, which bans any form or discrimination (which DEI policies inherently do).
In response the Florida Department of Education sent notices to School Districts of this change in policy taking place. The FDOE sent out a form for school superintendents to verify that they were complying by April 18th. Last week, just before the deadline, Palm Beach County School Superintendent Michael Burke signed the form verifying compliance. Had he not, the school district would have missed out on $300 million of federal funding.
That’s what set off the series of events that happened this week – first with the emergency rule change by the School District, and second with the 90-day change ordered by the school board.
So that’s how we got here. The PBC School District may not have been violating state law, however they’ve essentially admitted through the DEI policy changes, that they had been violating federal law, the Civil Rights Act, right along. As is always the case with laws. What’s most important is enforcement. Credit the Trump administration with enforcing federal law.