As other states push back against federal anti-DEI orders, Alabama officials say they plan to comply with a Trump administration request to prohibit diversity, equity and inclusion programs in local schools.
The Education Department asked states this month to sign “new assurances” related to civil rights compliance. The April 3 letter asks superintendents to certify that K-12 schools have ended “illegal” diversity, equity and inclusion practices that “advantage one’s race over another.”
State Superintendent Eric Mackey said the federal request wouldn’t change anything in local schools. But officials are still weighing out the details before they sign any assurances.
“All of these things, we’re going to work our way through,” Mackey told state board members at a work session April 10. “But we are going to be very clear that as long as we are here together, the constitutional civil rights of every child in Alabama will be protected, period.”
“We want every kid to be able to go to school, be treated fairly at school and so on. But the intricacies of how that is done and documenting it, we’ll work through the lawyers.”
A judge has extended the deadline to comply from April 14 to April 24 following a recent lawsuit from the National Education Association.
Alabama already has its own anti-DEI law on the books, following a 2021 state board of education policy to end so-called “critical race theory” in K-12 schools. The law, which is being challenged in federal court, prohibits state-funded DEI offices and certain programming and training in state institutions.
While Mackey said the federal order itself does not threaten federal funding, the guidance follows a February Dear Colleague letter that says institutions may lose funds if they continue to use DEI or other race-conscious practices pertaining to scholarships, discipline policies, graduation ceremonies, other student support and academic programs.
The Trump administration has already frozen a number of federal grants that it claimed promoted diversity, equity and inclusion programs or practices. The University of Alabama at Birmingham is also one of dozens of universities under federal investigation for a doctoral program aimed at underrepresented students.
“We’ve read it every way you can read it, backwards and forwards, and we don’t think it affects any of our schools at all, because we don’t use race-based decisions for admissions,” Mackey said.
Mackey said the state was prepared to submit a plan last week, but then received a new email from the department with some conflicting information. He is talking with other state chiefs to work through any concerns and plans to have an answer by the new deadline.
“We want all of our legal team to agree,” he said. “We want the attorney general’s legal team to agree, and the governor’s legal team to agree, and all of those lawyers are looking at all of these things.”
State education officials in Colorado, California and New York, among others, have refused to sign the guidance, saying that they have already signed Title IV assurances. Just last week, 16 other states sued over the ESSER freezes, saying the department could jeopardize hundreds of millions of dollars in spending.
Alabama hasn’t always complied with federal guidance. Three years ago, state officials refused to sign a new Title IX rule from the Biden administration that aimed to provide new protections to LGBTQ students.
The state was one of 20 to sue the department over the order, which would have required schools to respect students’ pronouns and provide accommodations for transgender students. The Supreme Court issued a stay, allowing states in the suit to ignore the rule while others had to comply.
Mackey said he expects to see a similar pattern play out over the next few years.
“There are going to be some states that don’t implement this, I can bet, and they’re going to also sue, and we could end up getting a split decision here,” he said. “But I probably shouldn’t get too much deeper into that until our AG weighs in on it.”