RALEIGH — President Donald Trump’s Department of Education has taken action to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, as well as ending former President Joe Biden’s “Book Ban Hoax,” according to press statements released by the agency.
The U.S. Department of Education’s (USDOE) elimination of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives follows Trump’s executive orders dismantling DEI, which his administration considers to be a “divisive ideology.”
Specific actions taken by the USDOE include dissolving both the Diversity and Inclusion Council and the Employee Engagement Diversity Equity Inclusion Accessibility Council, canceling DEI training contracts worth more than $2.6 million, withdrawing the Department’s Equity Action Plan, placing DEI-focused staff on paid administrative leave, and identifying over 200 DEI-related web pages for removal.
In a Jan. 23 press release, the USDOE stated it will continue reviewing its programs and services to identify and address additional DEI initiatives, including those that may use “coded or imprecise language.”
The following day, on Jan. 24, the USDOE’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued a press statement announcing the dismissal of 11 complaints over “book bans.”
“The complaints alleged that local school districts’ removal of age-inappropriate, sexually explicit, or obscene materials from their school libraries created a hostile environment for students – a meritless claim premised upon a dubious legal theory,” the USDOE OCR statement reads. “Effective Jan. 24, 2025, OCR has rescinded all department guidance issued under the theory that a school district’s removal of age-inappropriate books from its libraries may violate civil rights laws.”
OCR will dismiss six additional book-banning allegations and remove the “book ban coordinator” put in place during 2023 under the Biden administration that was in charge of investigating complaints involving obscene material in schools, per the statement.
“By dismissing these complaints and eliminating the position and authorities of a so-called ‘book ban coordinator,’ the department is beginning the process of restoring the fundamental rights of parents to direct their children’s education,” Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor said in the press statement.
“The department adheres to the deeply rooted American principle that local control over public education best allows parents and teachers alike to assess the educational needs of their children and communities,” Trainor said. “Parents and school boards have broad discretion to fulfill that important responsibility. These decisions will no longer be second-guessed by the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education.”
The policy change regarding the alleged book bans stems from a review initiated by incoming OCR leadership on Jan. 20, 2025, which determined that these cases involved parental and community judgment rather than civil rights issues.
The book bans origins involving OCR trace back to February 2022, when a complaint was filed against Forsyth County School District in Georgia. While regional OCR officials initially sought to dismiss the complaint, Biden administration appointees overruled the decision and, in a settlement agreement, required the district to implement various measures, including posting statements about DEI. Under the policy change, the agreement imposed on Forsyth County School District will be terminated.
An organization called PEN America claims to have documented more than 10,000 instances of book bans involving some 4,200 titles, many of which contain graphic violence and sexual content.
Two of the books regularly objected to are “Lawn Boy” and “Gender Queer.” Both titles have been removed from shelves in numerous schools around the country due to sexually explicit material. “Gender Queer” has been objected to not just for its text, but also for its imagery.
PEN America admits it has a broad definition of a book ban. On its website, PEN America defines a ban as “any action taken against a book based on its content and as a result of parent or community challenges, administrative decisions, or in response to direct or threatened action by lawmakers or other governmental officials, that leads to a previously accessible book being either completely removed from availability to students, or where access to a book is restricted or diminished.”
In North Carolina, the push to remove books with pornographic and violent content has continued. Last May, a group of lawmakers, school board members and advocacy groups led by the conservative nonprofit NC Values Coalition held a press conference calling for changes to state laws regarding books in schools.
“Now it’s time for a statewide solution,” NC Values President Tami Fitzgerald said during the May 2024 press event. “We should adopt a statewide criteria for book selection to ensure books are educationally and age-appropriate and to require schools to comply with North Carolina’s obscenity laws.”
Wake County Public Schools (WCPSS) Board Member Cheryl Caulfield asked the news outlet covering the press event, “Can you show this in your newspaper or your broadcasts? If not, why is it OK for our minors to read it?”
In 2023, WCPSS’ board shut down book challenges by parents by instituting a two-year challenge moratorium policy. Under that policy, once a title has been challenged, no one can file an objection to it for two years despite North Carolina law giving parents the right to inspect and object to any materials used by their child’s school, including books.
School closures and mask mandates during the 2020 pandemic prompted some parents from around the country to protest at school board meetings. In the years that have followed, parents have continued to speak out at school board meetings over the use of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and DEI, as well as criticizing books in K-12 school libraries and classrooms that contain sexual content.
In October 2021, then-U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a memo directing the Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Attorneys’ Offices to investigate parents protesting at school board meetings.
The Garland parent memo prompted several congressional hearings, during which time it was learned that the memo was prompted by a letter sent to former President Joe Biden by the National School Boards Association (NSBA) that compared parent protests to domestic terrorism and that the FBI was employing counterterrorism tactics on parents.
An NSBA report later revealed that Biden had personally called NSBA Board of Directors President Viola Garcia after the letter became public and that Garland was aware of Biden’s involvement.
Backlash followed, with dozens of state school board associations dropping their NSBA membership, including North Carolina.
