Milwaukee Public Schools allegedly encouraged staff to consider a student’s race before rendering detention or suspensions, while their peers in the Fayetteville district in Arkansas are accused of following a similar directive to address “the disproportionality of discipline on students of color,” the Department of Education said Aug. 18.
The federal agency is investigating both districts for Civil Rights violations, said Kimberly Richey, assistant education secretary.
“For too long, the left’s pursuit of ‘equity’ has perversely required schools to discipline students differently, based on their race,” she said in an Aug. 18 news release.
“It has prevented teachers from keeping their classrooms safe, put students in harm’s way, and severely compromised student learning opportunities.”
With those investigations, the agency also issued a 20-page “Dear Colleague” letter to public schools across the nation that states educators, in accordance with existing Civil Rights laws, must treat students even-handedly and neither favor nor disfavor any student based on their race.
“Parents and their minor students have enough things to worry about. Whether their children will be safe and treated equally based on race when they drop them off at school or walk them to the bus stop each morning should not be one of them,” states the letter, signed by Richey.
This letter follows the Department of Education’s July 23 guidance that removed the “disparate impact” regulations issued by President Barack Obama in 2014.
Under Obama’s policy, districts were required to report school disciplinary actions and faced federal funding cuts if black or Hispanic students were “disproportionately” suspended or expelled.
Richey’s guidance notes that disruptive behavior, missed school days by victims of bullying, and higher rates of teacher dissatisfaction correlated with Obama’s race-conscious discipline policies.
The most recent FBI report regarding crime in schools notes that the number of criminal incidents in learning facilities has more than tripled, from 100,810 in 2020 to nearly 330,000 in 2024.
Assault was the most common incident type (538,778 cases), followed by larceny/theft (234,601). Those are totals for both K–12 and higher education during the 2021–2022 academic year.
In addition, the National Center for Education Statistics reported 857,500 violent incidents at public K–12 schools during the 2021–2022 academic year.
The Milwaukee Public Schools’ Department of Student Discipline states on its website that it facilitates “courageous conversations about race” through required staff trainings on that topic and annual student leadership summits.
This has resulted in 1,000 fewer behavior referrals and 500 fewer suspensions over two academic years, according to the district website.
“Staff and students specifically define what behaviors look like, sound like, and feel like,” reads the district’s 2025–2026 alternatives to suspensions toolkit.
“Staff operationalize expectations for classroom culture, environment, and instruction, ensuring political viewpoints that reinforce Whiteness and/or White supremacist ideology are not implemented under the guise of classroom culture, environment, and/or instruction.”
“In other words, students from these groups accounted for a higher percentage of all suspended students, compared to their representation in the population overall,” the document states.
Stephen Davis, speaking for Milwaukee Public Schools, said the Department of Education’s notice to the district “does not contain the basis or prompting for the investigation.”
“Once we receive more detail, we would be able to respond appropriately,” he said in an email to The Epoch Times.
The Epoch Times also reached out to the Fayetteville, Arkansas, school districts for comment.
