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The Department of Justice (DOJ) is stepping into a federal lawsuit accusing the nation’s second-largest school district of illegally sorting students by race to determine funding and school admissions.
The Civil Rights Division filed a motion to intervene on Wednesday in the case against the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD).
Be informed, not misled.
The lawsuit targets the district’s predominantly Hispanic, Black, Asian, and Other (PHBAO) program, which classifies neighborhoods as “Anglo” or non-Anglo and distributes resources accordingly.
A press release put out by the DOJ says, "This program categorizes students by race and by the race of their neighbors in order to determine school funding and magnet school admissions. The lawsuit was brought by the 1776 Project Foundation, a nonprofit focused on public education."
“Treating Americans equally is not a suggestion — it is a core constitutional guarantee that educational institutions must follow,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “This Department of Justice will never stop fighting to make that guarantee a reality, including for public-school students in Los Angeles.”
“Los Angeles County students should never be classified or treated differently because of their race. Yet this school district is doing exactly that by providing benefits that treat students — based on their race — as though they have learning disabilities,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “Racial discrimination is unlawful and un-American, and this Civil Rights Division will fight to ensure that every LAUSD student is treated equally under the law.”
Once again, the Left shows its deep-seated hypocrisy. While on the one hand, they extol the Civil Rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr., on the other hand, they ignore and erase his statement that tells us to not judge people by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, notes that the "PHBAO Program first separates everyone in the LAUSD area by race into either the 'Anglo,' meaning White group, and everyone else. School neighborhoods with less than 30% Whites are treated as disadvantaged with 'Predominantly' non-White racial groups. Most schools are PHBAO in the majority Hispanic area served by LAUSD."
The United States’ complaint notes that LAUSD provides extra funding to the PHBAO schools to lower the student/teacher ratio by 5.5 students and increase parent-teacher conferences. It also gives students wishing to transfer to a magnet program an admissions preference equal to that given to students in overcrowded schools. LAUSD treats attending school with non-Whites as a disadvantage equal to attending an overcrowded school.
Lead attorney Michael DiNardo condemned the policy in a statement reported by Fox LA.
“These policies are not just unfair — they’re unconstitutional,” DiNardo said. “What began as a temporary measure to address segregation has become a rigid system of racial favoritism that excludes thousands of students from equal opportunity.”
Fox notes that in the mid-1970s, California courts identified five 'Harms of Racial Isolation' that the district was legally obligated to alleviate:
- Low academic achievement
- Low self-esteem
- Lack of access to post-secondary opportunities
- Interracial hostility and intolerance
- Overcrowded conditions
While these court orders were intended to foster integration, the 1776 Project Foundation contends they are now "obsolete" and function as unconstitutional discrimination.
The LA School District has conveniently put aside the original intent and used it to advance their so-called "Progressive" agenda, which we now know includes discrimination against white kids and their families.
Fox says, "As the case moves through federal court, it may serve as a bellwether for the future of student integration programs across the United States, particularly as federal officials move to roll back long-standing equity initiatives."
Takeaway
The New York Times noted yesterday that "The PHBAO label covers more than 600 LAUSD campuses, leaving fewer than 100 outside the classification. White students account for approximately 10 percent of total enrollment."
The Times also quoted Ryan James Girdusky, a conservative political consultant and the group's founder, “This is the most blatant example of racial discrimination by a major school district in this country.”
The Los Angeles school district remains among the most segregated in the country, with wide test score gaps between racial groups, well short of the ideals that motivated a 1963 desegregation lawsuit and the lengthy legal battle that followed.
Like many other districts, Los Angeles never truly integrated its schools. A short-lived mandatory busing program ended in the early 1980s.
I was a youth pastor in Los Angeles during the 1970s. I've witnessed racial discrimination. Believe me, it's ugly either way the discrimination goes.
Consider this:
Racism is not God's plan for the human race. The Bible is very clear about racism.
- Galatians 3:28 - There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
- Romans 2:11 - For there is no respect of persons with God.
- Malachi 2:10 - Have we not all one father? Hath not one God created us? Why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, by profaning the covenant of our fathers?
- 1 John 4:20 - If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?
Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Vigilant. Be Engaged. Be Prayerful.
