Federal DOE flips stance on ‘racial equity’

The US Department of Education suspended a decision that found racial “affinity groups” discriminated against students and staff, The Post has learned.

The goal of the programs — used by the New York City public-school system and other districts nationwide — is to separate students and staff by racial groups in order to help address discrimination and “white privilege.”

But the practice of separating schools into racial groups is discriminatory, an initial DOE determination obtained by The Post found.

Those findings — reached during the waning days of former President Donald Trump’s time in office in early January — were in response to a complaint about a Chicago-area school district’s “racial equity” training programs and lesson plans:

The 18-page “letter of finding” — drafted by the DOE’s Office of Civil Rights enforcement director Carol Ashley — was triggered by a complaint filed by a former New York City teacher who now works in the EvanstonSkokie, Ill., school district.

Those findings said the district violated civil-rights law by offering various “racially exclusive affinity groups” that separated students, parents and community members by race, among other policies.

Ashley said “deliberately” segregating students and employees by race reduced them “to a set of racial stereotype.”

The teacher-complainant, who wished to remain anonymous, said she received a call from Ashley on Jan. 6, who told her she issued a letter of finding that the district programs violated federal civil rights law.

But on Jan. 22, Ashley called the teacher again, informing her that her case was being suspended due to President Biden’s new executive orders on “equity.”