Hot on the heels of his Administration’s April 23 Executive order effectively restoring racism under the guise of ‘equality of opportunity and meritocracy’ in the Civil Service (see: Restoring racism), Trump went one step further that same day and issued an Executive Order for American classrooms to rid them of “unlawful equity ideology” policies.

The Administration believes “as a consequence of these policies, teachers and students are suffering increased levels of classroom disorder and school violence.”

Really?

Equity is what is causing school violence?

The Executive Order touted by the White House as “Reinstating Common Sense School Discipline Policies” effectively rolls back a 2014 and subsequent 2023 Department of Education and Department of Justice mandates on school discipline.  

The mandates effectively encouraged educators to look at students as a whole, including their lived experience, which often included considering a student’s race and systemic disadvantages that some individuals may face.

The directive was that if schools were found to violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, they could lose Federal funding – if their disciplinary decisions did not follow a disparate-impact framework.

Under disparate-impact, schools were encouraged to ensure that no one race was unfairly suspended, expelled, or referred to law enforcement at higher rates than others. 

Basically, a disparate-impact framework tries to eliminate inherent and systemic biases that exist, which often result in racialized individuals being negatively impacted more often than their White counterparts.

Trump hates disparate impact.

In Trump’s world, trying to level the playing field for those individuals impacted by an American society that often discriminates against them and leaves them unfairly disadvantaged, apparently lacks ‘common sense.’

Perhaps, as has been reported by Brad DeLong at the Guardian, when your father transfers his wealth to the tune of around $500M in gifts and inheritance, that clouds one’s vision of how the world really is.

Most people aren’t that lucky.

Especially racial minorities.

The reality is that racial minorities are more likely to be disciplined, suspended, expelled, referred to law enforcement, and ultimately drop out of school than their White counterparts.

Furthermore, there is evidence that the 2014 mandate put minority students on a better path.

In 2012, the dropout rate for Black youth was over 9%.

In 2022, it had fallen to 5.7%, while still higher than the 4.3% for White youth, but it was a far better outcome than before 2014.

The Executive Order mandates new discipline policies that “promote common sense, protect the safety and educational environment of students, do not promote unlawful discrimination, and are rooted in American values and traditional virtues.”

Traditional virtues?

What exactly does that mean?

White virtues? Religious virtues?

The Order unfortunately does not expand or define the term, but given this Administration’s track record, one can only assume.

Ultimately, there is no ‘common sense’ in this Executive Order; it’s just more pandering to Trump’s far-right, race-focused base that likes to blame issues like school violence on the racialized ‘other.’