The New York State Education Department on Friday issued a defiant response to the Trump administration’s threats to pull federal funding from public schools over certain diversity, equity and inclusion programs, a remarkable departure from the conciliatory approach of other institutions in recent weeks.
Daniel Morton-Bentley, the deputy commissioner for legal affairs at the state education agency in New York, wrote in a letter to federal education officials that “we understand that the current administration seeks to censor anything it deems ‘diversity, equity & inclusion.’”
“But there are no federal or state laws prohibiting the principles of D.E.I.,” Mr. Morton-Bentley wrote, adding that the federal government has not defined what practices it believes violate civil rights protections.
The stern letter was sent one day after the federal government issued a memo to education officials across the nation, asking them to confirm the elimination of all programs it argues unfairly promote diversity, equity and inclusion. Title I funding for schools with high percentages of low-income students was at risk pending compliance, federal officials said.
New York’s stance differed from the muted and often deferential responses across academia and other major institutions to the Trump administration’s threats. Some universities have quietly scrubbed diversity websites and canceled events to comply with executive orders — and to avoid the ire of the White House.
Good. All blue states and people who believe in democracy need to tell this government to fuck off at every opportunity.
My hope is we (NY) withhold what we would get in school funding from our federal taxes, or maybe we just stop paying them. Get all the Blue states to stop paying for the Red ones and maybe we can stop letting this asshole use economic threats to get States to submit to his bullshit.
Edit - Also what about all that “States Rights” bullshit these mouth breathes were spewing when they were banning books and bullying trans kids?
Yes.
States don’t pay federal taxes. Residents of the state pay federal taxes.
So it would have to be you underpaying the IRS and taking the legal and financial risk.
I’m torn on this because I love that blue states are standing up for DEI. But, like, kids are already suffering enough especially in Rochester which already is ranked one of the worst school districts in the country based on test scores and graduation rates. The teens are already out of control on crime sprees ands joy rides (some young as 11 and 12)here thanks to these kids having nothing better to do than get into gangs due to peer pressure.
If NY state has a backup plan to at least maintain funding levels for schools once federal funding gets cut I’d feel better about this. Spoiler alert: they don’t. They’re also forcing all school districts in the state to switch to electric buses amidst all this new crap going on.
The only people who will suffer from this decision are the students and the communities that will have to put up with even more crime sprees and joy rides. But I guess in war, causalities will happen whether we like it or not.
I get your concern in a sense because kids in Rochester do have it pretty rough. While crime stats in the us and NY are down, violent crime Rochester specifically has stayed pretty steady since the 90s and is higher than national and NY crime levels.
But I don’t think this will be the thing that impacts these kids and school districts the most. The issues Rochester face come from poor incentive management for schools, high teacher burnout and poor employee retention, large classroom sizes, issues with corruption within specific school systems, and concentrations of low socioeconomic people.
I need to admit I left the public education world in NY a while ago. But it used to be that the worse a school performed the less money it got. Because schools only get a small percentage of funding from the federal government that gets pulled from them when they underperform (I very quickly looked at the numbers and it appears Rochester gets less than the national % average in federal funding, about 10% compared to the national 13% depending on what year you’re looking at). So schools with students who needed the most help either lost money or just tried to cover up student issues to hide them instead of address them. As long as this and property tax funding is the model and admin dictates their own salaries, schools aren’t going to improve.
IMO, it’s even specifically DEI policies that briefly helped some schools excel in the us during school bussing. Bussing students forced integration of students from all different backgrounds and socioeconomic groups. Rich and attentive parents with more bandwidth made sure whatever school their kid was at was well funded and well run. Kids from different backgrounds became friends and humanized each other. Kids from poor backgrounds were offered support systems outside of gangs and violence. And these poor kids didn’t poison the well and bring crime to their new schools. Kids are kids. If you offer them opportunities, they don’t choose gangs and violence.
What will really fix schools and improve things for kids
How old are you, 95?
This is the dumbest “the youth are bad!” scaremongering I’ve ever seen.
Scaremongering you say?
11-year-old boy driving stolen car hits woman in Rochester
Teen accused of shooting and killing another teen during robbery on Flint Street
Four juveniles charged in Greece stolen vehicle crash
Teenager arrested for carjacking involving loaded ‘ghost gun’
And while not strictly teenager related, I get to hear these idiots ride in a pack and go up and down the city streets during the summer.
I’m not saying all teenagers are bad but when schools are the worse in the country, there’s not really any other options for kids.
I will admit I should have put these links in my origami comment, but I assumed this was an issue in many urban areas. 🤷🏻♂️
Literally all of these are anecdotal evidence. Youth crime is down massively since the 90’s, and beyond the very real gun violence (for which y’all have tried nothing and are all out of ideas) none of the stories you linked demonstrate or try to demonstrate a systemic problem except the systemic problem of news organisations optimizing for clicks rather than information.
Lmao
Since New York is a net giver than receiver of federal money they probably have the money to keep schools running. Urban blue states are filthy rich so it’s a matter of political will more than anything. Also New York City is one of the cities with the least crime in America, so while the media likes to play up crime for views it’s not really a thing.