The U.S. Department of Education has issued a directive that represents a blatant assault on racial progress. In a “Dear Colleague” letter, Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights for the Education Department, declares that diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, scholarships and policies aimed at addressing racial disparities in education are unlawful. This letter distorts civil rights law and threatens to strip federal funding from any institution that dares to remedy, or even acknowledge, racial inequities.
Make no mistake. This is not about fairness; it’s about erasure.
If the ideas expressed in Trainor’s letter become the new standard for education policy, then generations of Black students will be shut out of opportunities that have already been difficult to access.
Make no mistake. This is not about fairness; it’s about erasure. It’s about rolling back decades of progress and silencing the very institutions that have fought to level the playing field.
Trainor’s letter invokes the language of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 while twisting its intent beyond recognition. He writes, “This letter explains and reiterates existing legal requirements under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution, and other relevant authorities.”
However, Title VI was designed to dismantle racial discrimination, not to prohibit corrective measures that address centuries of inequity. Trainor and the Department of Education now argue that race-conscious policies, even those explicitly aimed at remedying historical injustices, are unlawful. They are citing civil rights law to justify rolling back civil rights progress.
The Supreme Court’s Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard ruling already set a dangerous precedent by gutting affirmative action in college admissions. Now, this directive takes it even further, extending those restrictions to scholarships, faculty hiring, financial aid and even student programming. Schools that attempt to promote racial equity — whether through targeted scholarships, mentoring programs, or inclusive hiring practices — are being threatened with the loss of federal funding.
This is a calculated attack not just on Black people but also on Black institutions that have long been underfunded and overburdened.
The most insidious part of this policy shift is its likely impact on historically Black colleges and universities.
The most insidious part of this policy shift is its likely impact on historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) such as my alma mater, LeMoyne-Owen College in Memphis, Tennessee, where I serve as an adjunct professor. For generations, HBCUs have provided opportunities for Black students who were historically locked out of predominantly white institutions. They have cultivated Black excellence, nurtured Black scholarship and produced Black leadership.
And now, under this new directive, their very mission is at risk. Trainor makes this threat explicit, stating, “Institutions that fail to comply with federal civil rights law may, consistent with applicable law, face potential loss of federal funding.”
The blasphemy of this policy — against Black people and Black freedom — is undeniable. The very institutions that were created to provide education and opportunity in the face of generations of exclusion and systemic underfunding are now being targeted under the false pretense of “equal treatment.” This is not about civil rights; it is, among other things, about denying Black institutions the resources to continue their work, punishing them for existing in the first place.
HBCUs have already been under attack. Last year, despite being owed billions in funding from the state, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee justified essentially swapping out Tennessee State University’s board of trustees by citing financial mismanagement and housing shortages, issues that were exacerbated by the state’s own decadeslong underfunding of the institution. Even when a federal report showed that Tennessee had shorted TSU $2.1 billion over an approximately 30-year period, the state chose to punish the university’s leadership instead of addressing the systemic funding disparities that contributed to these challenges. This move was widely seen as a political power grab, undermining TSU’s autonomy and reinforcing the state’s history of marginalizing its only publicly funded HBCU.
This new directive from the Department of Education is simply another prong in the same attack on Black institutions. And we should be clear: If they come for HBCUs today, they will come for public education, workers’ rights and other marginalized communities tomorrow — because oppression never stops at its first target. History proves that when Black progress is under attack, every other fight for equity and justice is next.
Conservative politicians have falsely framed DEI programs and affirmative action as “race-based advantages.” White supremacist apologists and conservative politicians have falsely framed DEI programs and affirmative action as “race-based advantages” for Black and brown people, maligning these initiatives as unearned privileges rather than an attempt to correct centuries of exclusion. These neo-segregationists have deliberately mischaracterized efforts toward equity as oppression and justice as discrimination — all while maintaining power structures that still overwhelmingly favor whiteness. “If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches, there’s no progress,” Malcolm X said. “If you pull it all the way out, that’s not progress. The progress is healing the wound that the blow made.” What we are witnessing right now is the mischaracterization of a partial pulling out of the knife as racial progress. White nationalists have assessed that even pulling it out partially was too much — and now they are seeking to shove it back in. The policies and protections that are being targeted by President Donald Trump’s administration were insufficient as they were. HBCUs, for example, were never fully funded. Black schools and communities were never equitably resourced. Affirmative action never truly corrected centuries of racial exclusion. Yet, the very mechanisms that were meant to move us toward justice are now being painted as the problem. For the past few Sundays, I have been preaching at Abyssinian Baptist Church, the church I pastor, about DEI, not as a political talking point, but as a spiritual and moral imperative. Through UPTheVote901, a nonpartisan voter empowerment initiative I founded in 2018, we have spent years organizing to push back against policies that seek to undermine Black communities. This moment requires more than awareness; it requires action. Now is the time to financially support HBCUs, Black churches and Black-led organizations. Now is the time to call out this attack on racial progress for what it is. Now is the time to push back against the erasure of our history and our future. This call is for those who recognize the danger of this moment and have the means — whether financial, political or social — to fight back. For the past few Sundays, I have been preaching about DEI as a spiritual and moral imperative. The policies outlined in the directive from the Education Department are an extension of a broader movement to roll back racial progress in every sector of society, including progress made in voting rights, economic justice and criminal justice reform. We cannot allow this to stand. We must face this moment with clarity, courage and conviction. Previous generations of freedom fighters sang, “Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me ‘round.” It’s our time to sing and live out the same.
Earle J. Fisher
The Rev. Earle J. Fisher, Ph.D. is Senior Pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church (Memphis), founder of #UPTheVote901 and author of "The Rev. Albert Cleage Jr., and the Black Prophetic Tradition: A Reintroduction of The Black Messiah" published by Lexington Books. 
