Kotek says Oregon won’t comply with Trump’s anti-DEI education directive

This story was updated with additional comments.

Oregon will not comply with a federal order requiring school districts to certify that they are eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion programs, Gov. Tina Kotek announced Thursday.

Kotek joined other states in pushing back against the latest Trump administration effort to end  such programs in schools. The federal directive includes threats to withhold billions of dollars in school funding.

The U.S. Department of Education on April 3 sent a notice giving states and school districts 10 days to certify they do not use “diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs to advantage one’s race over another,” and that they comply with the Civil Rights Act. Those that don’t certify risk losing federal funding.

On Thursday, administration officials extended the deadline to April 24.

“The Trump Administration’s threat to shortchange Oregon students hurts children and families and undermines the dedication and work of our educators. That is why I directed ODE to hold the line today. We will not tolerate this unwarranted and unlawful attempt to take away resources promised to Oregon students and paid for by the tax dollars we send to the federal government,” Kotek said in a statement.

Oregon joins states including New York and Minnesota that have said they won’t comply.

Charlene Williams, director of the Oregon Department of Education, said in a Thursday letter that Oregon would continue to promote diversity, equity and inclusion in schools.

“Threats to this federal funding without lawful authority or established requirements put key programs at risk that students and schools across Oregon depend on every day. There is no circumstance where it is okay to leverage children’s resources as a political tool. Oregonians paid for and deserve these federal investments. We are standing up for the rights of all Oregonians and will continue to promote diversity in our schools because we recognize it enhances learning outcomes for all students,” Williams wrote.

She wrote that Oregon has already certified it complies with the Civil Rights Act, and the notice is unclear about what other programs might be prohibited.

“Although the letter references ‘certain DEI practices’ or ‘illegal DEI,’ it does not define those terms, and there are no federal or state laws prohibiting diversity, equity, or inclusion,” Williams wrote.

It’s a move welcomed by Salem-Keizer School District Superintendent Andrea Castañeda, who addressed the federal funding threat in comments to the school board during an April 8 meeting.

She urged the governor and state agency to join other states that said school districts would not have to respond.

“I’m grateful to the governor’s office and the Department of Education and beyond that proud to be an Oregonian in a time of tremendous uncertainty,” she said in an interview.

She joined superintendents for 10 of Oregon’s largest districts, including Portland, Beaverton, Tigard-Tualatin and Eugene, in signing a letter thanking Kotek, Williams and Attorney General Dan Rayfield for their work.

“This demand was a test of Oregon’s commitment to our values and our expectations for a good government. Your response modeled the leadership we need and made us proud to be public education leaders in Oregon,” the superintendents wrote. “In our districts, we welcome, protect, respect, and teach every student without exception. Your decision affirms and supports our commitment to our students.”

Castañeda said that the federal Department of Education may opt to change policy and programming, but that it needs to do so following federal law.

“There are many procedural ways to do it correctly and holding entitlement funding for children hostage is not one of them,” she said.

Salem-Keizer receives about $80 million a year from the federal government. That money pays for free school breakfast and lunches for thousands of students, and pays the salaries for additional teachers and support workers in local schools with high poverty rates.

“It’s such a large number that it is not possible to plan for” its loss, Castañeda told the school board.

The district has programs to help students who have historically posted lower graduation rates and performed worse on state assessments. Some of those efforts are along racial lines, such as using dedicated coaches and clubs to boost attendance and graduation rates for Pacific Islander students.

Others target students who are homeless, have disabilities, speak English as a second language or are recent immigrants.

Many schools in Salem have clubs like Black Student Union or Chicano student group MEChA, which are focused on a nationality or ethnicity but open to all students.

In an interview, Castañeda said the district would not change programs or job titles or the names of groups solely to comply with Trump’s directives.

She told the school board it wasn’t clear which programs were the target of the federal restrictions.

“We proactively choose diversity because we live in a pluralistic community and country. And to not choose diversity means, I suppose, to choose uniformity, which doesn’t make sense to most of us. To not choose equity seems to me to mean that we choose inequity, which is equally irrational. And to not choose inclusion means we choose exclusion and I don’t think that’s true about us either,” Castañeda told the board.

“The people of Salem-Keizer are generous and we care about each other, we care about our children and our neighbor’s children. We’re not a community that wants to see families strained, children hungry or school systems weakened and anxious and those shared beliefs make us stronger in these moments of uncertainty,” she told Salem Reporter.

School board Director Satya Chandragiri, one of two generally conservative board members, wrote a Thursday letter to Castañeda raising concerns about her position. He said well-intention DEI programs implemented in recent years became “politicized,” leading to white, south Asian and conservative students feeling unwelcome in schools.

“A large section of our own community felt afraid or excluded. It broke families apart, caused a rift between friends, children and parents, neighbors and sadly polarized our communities and became like the modern day ‘segregation,'” he wrote.

“It is my opinion that we must fill out the required legal paperwork as we need the federal funds for our children and public institutions,” he wrote.

He told Salem Reporter he would bring up the issue at a future board meeting, but does not expect the board to act because a majority likely agree with Kotek’s postion.

Contact reporter Rachel Alexander: [email protected] or 503-575-1241.

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