WIRED magazine reports that Trump is raising millions of dollars by offering to have dinner at Mar-a-Lago with rich donors. A 1:1 dinner, just you and Trump, costs $5 million. Dinner in a group is only $1 million per person.
Have we ever had a President who sold access in this manner?
Wired said:
Guests are paying millions of dollars to dine and meet with President Donald Trump at special events held at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.
Business leaders can secure a one-on-one meeting with the president at Mar-a-Lago for $5 million, according to sources with direct knowledge of the meetings. At a so-called candlelight dinner held as recently as this past Saturday, prospective Mar-a-Lago guests were asked to spend $1 million to reserve a seat, according to an invitation obtained by WIRED.
“You are invited to a candlelight dinner featuring special guest President Donald J. Trump,” the invitation reads, under a “MAGA INC.” header. MAGA Inc., or Make America Great Again Inc., is a super PAC that supported Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign. “Additional details provided upon RSVP. RSVPs will be accommodated on a first come, first serve basis. Space is very limited. $1,000,000 per person.”
Invitees were asked to RSVP to Meredith O’Rourke, who served as national finance director and senior adviser at Donald J. Trump for President 2024, a campaign committee, and who is the owner of The O’Rourke Group, which O’Rourke describes on her LinkedIn page as a “Republican political fundraiser.” Invitees were also directed to email Abby Mathis, the finance coordinator at MAGA Inc. Mathis was previously a staff assistant for Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama—a former Auburn University football coach—and also served as an intern at the White House office of the staff secretary, according to LegiStorm, a research organization that posts information on politicians and their staffers.
The invitation specifically states that “Donald J. Trump is appearing at this event only as a featured speaker, and is not asking for funds or donations.” The event occurred at 7 pm on March 1 and was listed on the president’s official schedule as the “MAGA INC. Candlelight Finance Dinner.” This is the only event by that name on Trump’s official schedule since he took office.
It’s not clear why Trump is raising money. The Constitution bars him from running for another term, although some Trump enthusiasts would like to interpret that amendment to mean “two consecutive terms.”
John Thompson, retired teacher and historian in Oklahoma, reviews a book about how to teach civics in this era.
He writes:
Lindsey Cormack’s How to Raise a Citizen (And Why It’s Up to You to Do It) “offers an engaging and practical approach to discussing political issues and the inner workings of the U.S. government with children.” And guess what? How to Raise a Citizen doesn’t dump the entire challenge on schools and educators, as was the norm for corporate school reformers! She presents “a tool for parents, educators, and anyone eager to fill this gap.”
Cormack pushes back on the 21st century test-driven, competition-driven ideology which demanded that individual teachers must be accountable for data-driven, supposedly transformative change. How to Raise a Citizen calls for mindsets which the Billionaires Boys Club insisted were “excuses” made by teachers with “low expectations.” She writes that “we need parents to play a key role, and to support integrating civics into every grade, starting early and building on concepts just like we do with other subjects.” Cormack challenges society to:
Imagine if parents took on this role by discussing government and politics at the dinner table, encouraging their children to ask questions and showing them how to get involved in community and local government activities.
Cormack then explains, “We need parents to play a key role, and to support integrating civics into every grade, starting early and building on concepts just like we do with other subjects.”
Both parents and educators should first focus on young children, helping them build a “vocabulary and awareness of governmental structures.” Then they should help middle schoolers and high schoolers to “handle broader concepts and ideas” so they “can and do engage in community involvement.”
By high school, there should be a team effort for “turning theory into action.” Cormack explains, “Experts agree that a high-quality civic education requires ‘action civics,’ in which students learn by doing rather than just reading. Simulations of elections, legislative hearings and courtroom activities are examples of active learning shown to be impactful and memorable.”
I am struck by three points that Cormack makes. First, the adults should guide efforts where the goal is deep learning about the political process, not politicizing lessons by guiding outcomes favored by one political group or another.
Secondly, this reprioritization of active learning “has to happen day in and day out, during presidential election years and all others.” Committing to this, we can raise a generation of informed, active citizens ready to take on the challenges of our democracy.
Thirdly, she makes a case for hopefulness.
How to Raise a Citizen reminds me about the ways my high school students and I taught each other how to actively participate in our democracy. My principal knew that I would refuse to follow vertically aligned curriculum pacing guides which teachers were supposed to obey so that we would “all be on the same page” regarding the teach-to-the-test schedule. Our class’ schedule for teaching state “Standards,” as opposed to standardized tests, was different whenever there was a presidential or mid-term election, or when state or local politics took over the headlines, or when extreme events, like the Murrah Building bombing, 9/11, or wars in Iraq and Afghanistan occurred.
I would “horizontally” align our civics and/or history lessons in terms of what was being taught in other classes, and events in the community. For instance, when English classes started reading Ralph Ellison’s The Invisible Man, I would teach about Ellison’s experiences growing up in Oklahoma City, such as the cruel joke that was played on him that inspired the famous “Battle Royal” scene.
Our inner city students’ reading levels ranged from 2nd grade to college levels. We would use graphs, photos, audio and film clips, and other interventions to help all of them comprehend challenging concepts. Above all, they saw high-level instruction as a sign of respect, and responded by learning how to learn in a holistic and meaningful way.
The students were especially insightful when guest lecturers visited, and during field trips to places like art museums, “Deep Deuce,” where Ellison grew up, and the state Capitol. This was especially true when a veteran of the Sit-In movement joined us in repeated trips to the Capitol. Legislators were always enthralled by the students’ wisdom.
When teaching abortion rights, I would reveal to my students, who mostly held anti-abortion beliefs, that I had been a lobbyist for Planned Parenthood, but everyone was free to their own opinion. I told them that I preferred the role of a teacher and referring to students as “pro-life,” as opposed to calling them “anti-choice,” which had been my job as a lobbyist.
Students frequently were more conservative than me regarding social issues, and some would come to class a day after a stimulating discussion, and pass on responses made by their parents or grandparents when they discussed our lessons from the previous day. One even brought his preacher to class, resulting in a diverse and meaningful conversation. And since I taught with the door open, parents walking down the hall would come in and join the discussions.
For instance, one father overheard our lesson on the Tulsa Massacre, which then was called the “Tulsa Race Riot.” He asked the class what name the massacre should be given, and then shifted gears and taught a lesson about anti-Jewish Pogroms. The kids figured out what he meant and shouted, “The Tulsa Pogrom!”
The next day, he came back and gave us a photo of Malcolm X shaking Martin Luther King’s hand, and taught a lesson on the Booker T. Washington to Malcolm X tradition and the W.E.B. DuBois to Martin Luther King tradition. (Clara Luper, the leader of the nation’s longest lasting Sit-In movement, did almost the same thing in another class; the students were thrilled when she challenged me by saying the Malcolm X tradition deserved respect but I shouldn’t give it respect equal to the MLK tradition.)
And that brings me to Cormack’s third basic point, bringing hope that schools, families, and communities can come together and nurture a commitment to civics education, and a 21st century democracy. A few years ago, I would have seen her optimism as a self-evident truth. Now, I worry that our failures to teach civics and history have helped undermine our society’s commitment political institutions. But, I try to focus on cross-generational and cross-cultural conversations. Cormack’s book, and memories of my students’ successes, restore my hope that we can push back against systemic challenges, and, as she emailed me, “build pathways for students and schools to thrive.”
The Network for Public Education works with scores of state and local grassroots groups that want to protect and strengthen public schools. Almost 90% of out nation’s children attend public schools. We are fighting libertarian billionaires and religious zealots who want to dumb down and indoctrinate our children. Above all, they want to cut their taxes by undereducating our children.
We just added a new partner!
The Network for Public Education congratulates Our Schools Our Democracy (OSOD), a new partner in our work to protect, defend, and improve public schools. Its comprehensive research exposes the harm charter schools do to Texas Public Schools and serves as a blueprint for reforming charter school laws not only in Texas but in every state.
OSOD will focus on fighting school privatization in Texas, with a special emphasis on the impact of charter schools. According to their website, “Texas public schools, governed by locally elected school board members, are the cornerstone of our democracy and the heart of our neighborhoods. However, since state lawmakers first authorized open-enrollment charter schools 30 years ago, unchecked charter expansion has harmed public school districts in every corner of the state.”
Along with the organizational launch is the launch of a comprehensive report: Facing Facts: Charter Schools in Texas. The report presents startling facts on the financial drain of charter schools on public schools, the lack of charter transparency, and the irresponsible practices presently enabled by Texas law. It provides readers with the arguments they need to actively advocate for charter reform.
Jeff Bryant, veteran education journalist, covered Linda McMahon’s Senate confirmation hearings for The Progressive. She is, of course, Trump’s choice for Secretary of Education. Everyone was stumped by her ability to dodge every question. Bryant said she was “elegant” in her obfuscations.
McMahon accepted the leadership of a department that Trump wants to abolish. She doesn’t know much about the department, so she had the challenge of defending an impossible position. She will lead a department that she wants to kill off.
McMahon became a billionaire with her husband, as an entrepreneur in the wrestling entertainment business. She may not know much about the functions of the U.S. Department of Education, but she has very strong and extremist views about education. She is Chairman of the Board of the America First Policy Institute. Go to its website and you will see what I mean. AFPI is closely allied with the aims of groups like Moms for Liberty. McMahon’s group thinks that teachers are “indoctrinating” students with radical ideas about race, gender, and America.
As Bryant writes about her testimony, she seems to have no strong views at all. Don’t be fooled.
He writes:
U.S. Senator Andy Kim, Democrat of New Jersey, likely spoke for many viewers of Secretary of Education appointee Linda McMahon’s Senate confirmation hearinglast week when he said, while questioning McMahon, “I guess I’m frustrated . . . . This whole debate we’re having right now, it just feels like it’s untethered from just the reality on the ground.”
Kim’s frustration grew from his exchange with McMahon about President Donald Trump’s efforts to cut and dismantle the Department of Education, in particular, the department’s Office for Civil Rights, and how that squares with the department’s obligation to address what Kim described as “a surge in antisemitism” in schools and on college campuses. McMahon’s ensuing non-answer—she pledged only to examine “what the impact” of the cuts would be—was just one example of her tendency throughout the hearing to obfuscate or respond to questions with platitudes.
During the hearing, McMahon refused to give U.S. Senator Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, a clear answer to his question about whether schools that have race- or gender-related afterschool clubs are in violation of Trump’sexecutive order to eliminate federal grants to organizations that support diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Murphy called her lack of clarity “chilling.”
When Delaware Democratic Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester asked McMahon if she believed that every school receiving federal dollars should follow federal civil rights laws, McMahon said, “Schools should be required to follow the laws,” but refused to provide a straight answer when Blunt Rochester then asked, “If private schools take federal dollars, can they turn away a child based on a disability or religion or race?”
McMahon stated her resolve “to make sure that our children do have equal access to excellent education,” but said that was a responsibility “best handled at the state level”—even though the failure of states to ensure equal access was a major reason for the Department of Education’s creation in 1980.
While she affirmed that many of the education department’s programs were established by law—though she was unsure of how many—she suggested that legally established education department functions might be relocated to other federal departments. When asked what she would do if Trump ordered her to carry out a policy change that violated congressionally established law, McMahon said, “The President will not ask me to do anything that is against the law,” which hardly seems plausible…..
Please open the link to finish the article. It was Senator Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire who said that McMahon was engaged in “elegant gaslighting.”
Bryant defines gaslighting:
Gaslighting—a process by which a person is psychologically manipulated through a pattern of comments or actions intended to make them question their perceptions of reality or accurate memories—more or less describes what Republicans have done with education policy for the past forty or fifty years.
James Taylor, the notable folk singer, posted the following lyric on BlueSky:
THOUGHTS ON UKRAINE
Were we wrong about Zelensky, the hero of Ukraine?
Were we wrong to feel the brotherhood of freedom in their struggle to resist the unprovoked attack upon their young nation?
When they fought the bully Putin to a standstill with righteous resistance.
When they stood up to the tyrant and stoically paid the price in patriots’ blood, were we not thrilled at their courage?
How do we now turn away? To stand by, mute and cowed, as the men who would be king: Putin, Trump and Musk, huddle in their fortress and decide the fate of nations, shutting out the people they betray?
Is this what has become of the cradle of liberty, … and the home of the brave..? That we slide the hidden dagger in the back of those who were our champions? While our allies in the defeat of Hitler and Stalin witness our betrayal
A reader of the blog called Quickwrit submitted this important comment about JD Vance’s condescending speech to European leaders about why they should include neo-Nazis and fascists in their political life.
Quickwrit wrote:
SPITTING ON AMERICAN BLOOD
The soil of Europe is soaked with the blood of American soldiers who died in World War II to stamp out nazism, and Vance spat on that blood-soaked soil by urging that European leaders allow nazism to rise again.
And how bitterly sad all those countless American heroes who spilled their blood to end nazism must feel when they look down on our nation today and see nazi flags flying and people wearing nazi tattoos.
My father came back from fighting World War II a broken man from the horrors of war against the nazis…but at least he came back. He would feel that he and all those who died to end nazism have been betrayed to see nazi flags and symbols in America which Vance dresses up by calling it “populism”.
AND THEN Trump says that Ukraine should not have gone to war with Russia just because Russia invaded Ukraine — that’s like saying that the United States should not have gone to war with Japan just because Japan bombed Pearl Harbor.
To take the analogy just another step further. Why did we go to war with Germany? Germany did not attack us. Germany did not invade our nation. Should we have stayed out of the war and allowed Hitler to overrun all of Europe? No, we were defending the idea of democracy. Were our allies perfect democracies? No. Were we? No. But the alternative was far, far worse.
Vance can’t see the difference between Ukraine, which for three years has resisted a brutal aggressor, and the aggressor.
Vance, Trump, and Musk whine that Zelensky has not held an election since 2018, so he must be a dictator. When did their buddy Putin last hold an election in which his rivals were allowed to compete? Never? They had the misfortune of being murdered before the elections. His last rival was sent to a Siberian labor camp, where he mysteriously died, even though he appeared in good health in all the photos of him.
Bret Stephens is a columnist for The New York Times. He is a conservative but he is no fan of Donald Trump. Stephens recognizes that Trump is a not-too-bright narcissist who puts himself above country and party. In this column, he describes how JD Vance made a fool of himself at the recent Munich Security Conference, where he lectured European leaders about their failure to honor the free speech of extremist rightwing parties. Vance spoke with total ignorance of the 1930s and World War II.
Stephens wrote:
In April 1928, Joseph Goebbels, later the Third Reich’s chief propagandist, wrote a newspaper essay addressing the question of why the National Socialists, despite being an “anti-parliamentarian party,” would nonetheless compete in that May’s parliamentary elections.
“We enter the Reichstag to arm ourselves with democracy’s weapons,” Goebbels explained. “If democracy is foolish enough to give us free railway passes and salaries, that is its problem. It does not concern us. Any way of bringing about the revolution is fine by us.”
Germany’s postwar federal republic, established over the ruins the Nazis made, has been haunted by Goebbels’s taunt ever since. How does a free society guard against being used, and possibly destroyed, by the rights and privileges it grants the enemies of freedom? How does it avoid the postwar fate of states like Czechoslovakia, which allowed Communist parties to gain a fatal foothold in their fledgling democracies? What about Palestinians, who voted for Mahmoud Abbas for president in 2005 and Hamas for Parliament in 2006 — and haven’t had an election since?
For countries with a totalitarian past, finding the right answers to these questions is hard. Few have done it better than Germany, which remains unmistakably democratic not because it unthinkingly honors a principle of unfettered liberty (no democracy does) but because it vigilantly monitors the enemies of democracy while maintaining a memory of what the nation once was. It’s something for which all Americans should feel especially grateful, given the price we paid in lives to defeat Germany’s previous political incarnations.
But not, apparently, JD Vance. The vice president’s speech last week at the Munich Security Conference — in which the man who refuses to say that Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election lectured his audience about Europe’s retreat from democratic values — combined with his meeting with the leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, party, has caused a scandal because it is a scandal, a monument of arrogance based on a foundation of hypocrisy.
Why does the AfD dismay so many Germans, including traditional conservative voters? The party began in 2013 in protest of Germany’s fiscal policies in Europe. It gained a further boost through its opposition to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-arms policy toward the uncontrolled immigration of more than a million Middle Eastern refugees.
But the party soon took a much darker turn. In 2017, Björn Höcke, a party leader in the eastern state of Thuringia, complained that Germans were “the only people in the world who’ve planted a monument of shame at the heart of their capital” — a reference to the memorial to the victims of the Holocaust — and that the country needed “nothing less than a 180-degree turnaround in the politics of remembrance.” In 2018, the party leader at the time, Alexander Gauland, dismissed “Hitler and the Nazis” as “just a speck of bird shit in over 1,000 years of successful German history.”
Last year, the German investigative news site Correctiv reported that in 2023 AfD politicians had met with other far-right extremists in a hotel in Potsdam, near Berlin, to discuss an “overall concept, in the sense of a master plan” for the “remigration” of “migrants” to their countries of ethnic origin — no matter whether those migrants were asylum seekers, permanent residents or German citizens. The star of the show was a 34-year-old Austrian named Martin Sellner, who as a teenager confessed to putting swastika stickers on a synagogue before going on to lead Austria’s so-called identitarian movement.
This record explains, in part, why all of Germany’s mainstream parties refuse to go into any sort of coalition government with the AfD, even as it is polling in second place in this month’s federal elections. Vance may seem to think it’s the responsibility of democracy to embrace any party or point of view; it’s worth wondering what he might have said if, instead of the AfD polling at around 20 percent, an antisemitic and anti-democratic Muslim Brotherhood-style party was drawing a similar percentage of voters.
In its first term, the Trump administration fought tooth-and-nail against Nord Stream, on the justified grounds that it made Germany dependent on an enemy of the West. Someone might ask Ric Grenell, Trump’s former ambassador to Berlin and now his special envoy, why the administration is now so fond of a party that effectively sides with that enemy?
There’s an argument to be made in a future column that some European governments go too far to curtail legitimate free speech. There’s another one to be written about the many ways that Europe’s supposedly mainstream right-of-center parties, particularly Germany’s Christian Democrats under Merkel, adopted left-leaning positions on migration, domestic security, fiscal policy, energy policy and other issues that drove conservative voters into the arms of the far right.
For now, the important point is this: Much like a certain British prime minister long ago, an American vice president went to Munich to carry on about his idealism while breaking bread with those who would obliterate democratic ideals. A disgrace.
Jess Piper lives on a farm in Missouri. She has been fighting for years against the mean-spirited policies of the Republicans in her state. She’s also pushed hard to persuade the Democrats to run candidates in rural counties, which they have written off.
In this post, she calls on parents, teachers, and decent folks to speak out against the lawsuit to kill Section 504, which protects the rights of people with disabilities.
She writes:
I loved my Kentucky-born grandma. She was one of 12 kids who lived in a small cabin in a valley next to a creek in Harlan. She made bologna gravy and fried chicken, but every time I visited, she made potato soup and a German Chocolate Cake. She knew they were my favorites.
She called me Jessie and I loved to sit and listen to her talk. You had to pry the stories out, but once she started, her narratives always kept me laughing or crying.
I miss her.
My grandma pictured with her siblings and parents. Harlan, Kentucky — 1930 something.
I was one of the first on that side of my family to graduate from college. When I received my MA in Education, my grandparents came all the way down to Arkansas to celebrate the day with me. They were very proud, but especially Grandma. She was proud to have a teacher in the family.
One day, years later, she asked me a question, “Jessie, what happened to education? The kids I went to school with could all read and write. Now, there are so many in school who can’t read well or do math.”
Grandma wasn’t trying to berate me or public schools — she did watch Fox News though and was getting some ideas in her head that didn’t live in reality. Fox regularly ran stories on kids in urban areas falling behind and that part isn’t necessarily untrue, but you and I both know why they focused on urban kids and not rural kids.
I reminded her of a few things about schools back in the 30s and 40s in Kentucky. Her school was poor but not nearly as poor as the Black schools in surrounding counties. I also asked her if she could remember any kids with disabilities in her class or school. She did not remember anyone with a disability, but she did say there were quite a few boys who couldn’t read well and they always dropped out by 6th or 8th grade to go to work on the farm or in a coal mine.
There you go, Grandma. There it is.
I will never forget that scene in “Forrest Gump” when Forrest’s mom had to have sex with the local Principal so her child could be enrolled in school. I know that is likely a stretch, but how far of a stretch?
There were no accommodations back then. If a child presented with a disability, they were most often turned away. Children could legally work on a farm at any age and they could work in a mine by 14.
The poor kids went to work and the kids with disabilities were shut out.
Grandma understood immediately after our talk…she just hadn’t thought about it much.
Fast forward to 2025 and Missouri is under the boot of a GOP supermajority and an Attorney General with few morals but a lot of hate that he directs at women, minorities, and folks with disabilities…even children.
Missouri AG Andrew Bailey was appointed in 2022 when Eric Schmitt won his Senate race. Don’t get me wrong — Eric Schmitt was nearly as bad and sued Missouri schools to force them to remove mask mandates in 2020. You know, when folks were dying from a global pandemic.
But, in my opinion, Andrew Bailey is the worst AG we have had in recent memory and that’s saying a lot because Josh Hawley was also a Missouri AG.
We have scraped the bottom of the barrel with Andrew Bailey.
Bailey is suing China for failing to supply our state with masks during COVID though Bailey has repeatedly said that masks didn’t prevent the spread of COVID.
Bailey is suing Costco for their DEI policies, saying that the private company should be forced to hire more white men because hiring women and people of color is discriminatory.
Bailey is suing Starbucks because he argues that, “Starbucks diversity initiatives have caused higher prices and longer lines,” and that, “Starbucks workforce is more female and less white.”
Yes, you read that right. I mean, it’s as condescending and racist as it sounds, but his first statement also goes against the Republican mantra of the “free market.” If folks don’t like a line or think the coffee is too high, they can just run over to a Scooter’s or McDonald’s.
But, it only goes downhill from there…Missouri’s AG has joined a suit to gut the 504 program.
What is Section 504 in plain language?
Section 504 is an important law that protects people with disabilities. 504 says you can’t discriminate against disabled people if you get money from the United States government. Section 504 says you cannot mistreat people because of their disabilities.
Section 504 has rules that explain what disability discrimination is. The rules say that schools, hospitals, and doctors’ offices have to include people with disabilities.
In the suit, my AG and sixteen other state AGs are suing because they want to eliminate gender dysphoria from a protected status under 504 — a Biden era addition to protect trans kids. But, the suit asks the court to get rid of all the updated rules – and to get rid of Section 504 altogether. The lawsuit says that Section 504 goes against the United States Constitution.
This will impact so many students in the country. The point is to offer no accommodations for any disability. For any child.
This is what they meant when they said Make America Great Again. They meant Kentucky in the 1930s.
There are a few things you can do: Call your AG if you live in Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, or West Virginia. Demand that they drop from the lawsuit.
The bright side of this suit is that it is bringing disability and accommodations in front of everyday Americans. Folks who may not understand DEI, understand a 504 — they should know diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts include disability.
Another positive note: my AG has rarely won any suit he has filed or joined. He is very bad at his job because he doesn’t seem to understand the Constitution. I hope this suit ends like most of them do…Bailey, with his tail tucked between his knees, running from cameras.
You can help get the word out by sharing this post or the others I will list at the bottom of this post.
Tell everyone you know and then start calling. We can’t do everything, but we can do one thing.
Julian Vasquez Heilig is a battler for the rights of the downtrodden. He researches and writes about diversity and equity. He is a member of the board of the Network for Public Education. Recently, he was Provost at Weatern Michigan University. He recently stepped down to enjoy his freedom of speech as a tenured faculty member.
He saw this letter sent to universities across the nation by the acting assistant secretary for civil rights in the U.S. Department of Education.
Please open the link to read Mr. Trainor’s letter. It is shocking that a person representing the once-respected Office for Civil Rights would write universities warning them that they must overlook the needs and civil rights of their minority students.
I am so proud of Julian!.
He wrote:
Craig Trainor Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights United States Department of Education 400 Maryland Avenue, S.W. Washington, D.C. 20202
Dear Acting Assistant Secretary Trainor,
I write to you today to critically examine the claims made in your February 14, 2025, letter regarding race-conscious policies in education. Your letter, purportedly presented as a reaffirmation of nondiscrimination obligations, instead fundamentally misrepresents the critical need to improve access and graduation rates for minoritized students. It disregards decades of legal precedent supporting diversity in education, unjustly targets the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, and promotes a regressive agenda that undermines student success. It is alarming that the Department of Education, an entity tasked with ensuring educational success, chose a lawyer and member of the Federalist Society as an Acting Assistant Secretary, to dismantle programs that seek to increase the success historically marginalized communities in higher education.
Mischaracterization of Race-Conscious Policies
Your assertion that American educational institutions have engaged in “pervasive and repugnant race-based preferences” is not only misleading but reflects a deep and purposeful misunderstanding of race-conscious admissions and equity initiatives. The Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (SFFA) indeed placed restrictions on the explicit use of race in admissions, but it did not, as your letter suggests, render all equity-based initiatives illegal. Programs designed to mitigate the effects of societal barriers—such as targeted outreach, mentorship, and holistic review processes—remain lawful and essential to fostering diverse educational environments.
At every institution in which I have served across four states Texas, California, Kentucky and Michigan, we have implemented successful race-conscious policies that have demonstrably increased success for underrepresented students and maintained our high academic standards. Our targeted outreach programs have helped ensure that students from marginalized communities are aware of and prepared for higher education opportunities. Additionally, mentorship programs connecting students with faculty and professionals have significantly improved retention and graduation rates among students of color. By dismantling such initiatives, the Department will reverse meaningful progress and undermining efforts that have directly contributed to closing achievement gaps.
Your letter further states, “Federal law thus prohibits covered entities from using race in decisions pertaining to admissions, hiring, promotion, compensation, financial aid, scholarships, prizes, administrative support, discipline, housing, graduation ceremonies, and all other aspects of student, academic, and campus life.” However, this sweeping declaration ignores the lawful and necessary efforts many institutions undertake to ensure historically underrepresented students have access to the same opportunities as their peers to improve their retention and graduation rates. By conflating race-conscious strategies with discriminatory practices, the Department deliberately distorts the purpose and impact of these initiatives and will cause great harm to student success.
The Fallacy of “Reverse Discrimination”
Your letter implies that white and Asian students are being systematically discriminated against in favor of Black and Latino students. This argument echoes the rhetoric of those who weaponized the concept of “reverse discrimination” to dismantle affirmative action. However, your claim that “an individual’s race may never be used against him” ignores the reality that for centuries, race has been used against Black and Brown individuals to limit their educational and professional opportunities and we live with that legacy today. It still happens extensively and on purpose, take a look at the literature on the disparities in school finance and educational opportunities authored by economist Bruce Baker. Equity policies are not about disadvantaging one group but ensuring that historically marginalized communities have fair access to educational opportunities and achieve success in higher education.
Your claim that “a school may not use students’ personal essays, writing samples, participation in extracurriculars, or other cues as a means of determining or predicting a student’s race and favoring or disfavoring such students” is an attempt to intimidate institutions into eliminating holistic review processes that recognize the complexity of a student’s lived experience. To argue that race must be ignored in all contexts ignores the profound and documented impact that racial identity has on a student’s educational journey and access to resources. This statement clearly attacks the US Supreme Court’s Chief Justice. As John Roberts noted in the SFFA decision, “Nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise.” His statement directly contradicts the Department’s rigid and overly broad interpretation, making it clear that race can still be a relevant factor in an applicant’s personal story and experiences.
Diversity as a Compelling Interest
The letter erroneously asserts that “nebulous concepts like racial balancing and diversity are not compelling interests.” This stance contradicts decades of precedent, including Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), in which the Supreme Court recognized the educational benefits of diversity as a compelling government interest. The Court affirmed that diverse educational environments promote cross-racial understanding, reduce racial isolation, and prepare students for a pluralistic society. To dismiss diversity as “nebulous” is to ignore the wealth of research and practice supporting its benefits in both education and the workforce.
The benefits of diversity in higher education extend beyond the classroom. Studies have shown that students educated in diverse environments are better prepared for the modern workforce, exhibit stronger critical thinking skills, and demonstrate greater civic engagement. Research by Sylvia Hurtado, my former mentor at the University of Michigan, has extensively documented how diverse learning environments enhance educational outcomes by fostering deeper cognitive engagement, promoting leadership skills, and reducing racial biases. The assertion that diversity efforts are merely political in nature disregards these well-documented positive outcomes. Moreover, the Department’s attempt to erase diversity efforts ignores the fact that a lack of diversity has serious consequences for educational institutions, workforce readiness, and national social cohesion.
The Misrepresentation of DEI Initiatives
Your letter claims that Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs “preference certain racial groups” and “teach students that certain racial groups bear unique moral burdens.” This characterization is not only false but represents a deliberate effort to discredit educators committed to fostering equitable learning environments for ALL students. DEI initiatives are designed to address persistent disparities and create spaces where students of all backgrounds—regardless of race, gender, or socioeconomic status—can thrive.
The claim that DEI programs “stigmatize” students misrepresents their purpose and ignores the fact that minoritized students have long endured systemic stigmatization—well before DEI initiatives existed. The stigma you reference is not a product of these programs but a continuation of racism itself. For example, slavery is not Black history; it is white history—an essential truth that must be acknowledged in education. Teaching about historical oppression and systemic inequities is not about assigning moral burdens but about fostering an accurate and honest understanding of our shared past.
Conclusion
We recognize the strategy being employed here. As one Polish minister aptly described former President Trump’s approach, the tactic being used is what the Russians call razvedka boyem—reconnaissance through battle: pushing forward to see what resistance arises before adjusting the approach accordingly. The Department’s effort to curtail diversity initiatives appears to be a similar attempt to gauge the response of institutions before proceeding with further restrictive measures. We must not only recognize this maneuver but also respond with unwavering commitment to equity and inclusion.
The Department’s arbitrary 14-day compliance ultimatum is an authoritarian overreach intended to intimidate institutions into immediate submission. This threat of federal funding loss is a coercive tactic designed to suppress dissent and discourage thoughtful institutional responses and constitutional freedom of speech. I urge universities and colleges to resist this unlawful directive and stand firm in their commitment to diversity and inclusion.
I fully understand that some universities will immediately comply with your demands. However, these institutions lack the courage to challenge your autocratic tendencies and defend the fundamental principles of academic freedom and equity. The institutions that yield without resistance betray their mission and the students they serve.
I implore the higher education community to recognize this moment as a test of its resolve. This is a time for courage and support policies and practices that improve our students’ success, not capitulation.
Diane Ravitch's blog 