President Donald Trump has signed a number of executive orders barring the use of federal dollars for diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
But Stanford University apparently still has an initiative to boost non-white students pursuing a career in teaching.
Defending Education said in a March 16 release that it filed a civil rights complaint against the elite California school for its “BIPOC” teaching cohort program.
“BIPOC” stands for “Black, Indigenous, People of Color,” and the program entails a partnership with the California Teachers Association and the UCLA National Board Project to help teachers “committed to earning National Board Certification and serving as teacher-leaders in their communities.”
National Board Certification, per the complaint, is the most prestigious available professional certification in primary and secondary education.
“Certification helps teachers receive higher salaries and quicker advancement, and many states distribute financial awards and incentives to certified teachers working in the state,” it added.
But an individual must identify as a “person of color” in order to qualify, according to the release.
“The cohort will be selected to seek a diverse balance of the following elements: racial and ethnic diversity, geographic representation, and subject matter/grade level,” the program says.
The program remains active in this school year, even after new Trump administration policies against such efforts, according to Defending Education.
The advocacy group contended that Stanford is violating the Civil Rights Act of 1964 through the program by making the opportunity race-based rather than colorblind.
“For this reason, Defending Education has filed a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education and requested that the Department investigate this apparent violation of federal law,” the group’s release made clear.
The complaint meanwhile invoked the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which forbids states from denying “equal protection of the laws” to any person within their jurisdictions.
In describing the Stanford program, the complaint contended that “if a primary or secondary school teacher wants to achieve National Board Certification, Stanford has a program to help them do exactly that — unless the teacher is White or Asian.”
The policy continues even after Trump signed several executive orders pertaining to DEI in higher education.
One such order, signed one day after he started his second term, made clear that DEI programs at colleges are both illegal and anti-American.
“Illegal DEI and DEIA policies not only violate the text and spirit of our longstanding Federal civil-rights laws, they also undermine our national unity, as they deny, discredit, and undermine the traditional American values of hard work, excellence, and individual achievement in favor of an unlawful, corrosive, and pernicious identity-based spoils system,” the order said.
Trump required “all agencies to enforce our longstanding civil-rights laws and to combat illegal private-sector DEI preferences, mandates, policies, programs, and activities.”
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