Parents Defending Education released the report, which documents a litany of examples and several common avenues to get DEI into the classroom at taxpayer expense

Casey Harper
The Center Square

A new report details millions of taxpayer dollars spent on funding diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at K-12 schools around the country. Critics say such spending diverts funding away from core educational objectives.

Parents Defending Education released the report, which documents a litany of examples and several common avenues to get DEI into the classroom at taxpayer expense.

PDE reported 30 grants totaling more than $32 million have been awarded that at least partially focus on DEI in the classroom since President Joe Biden took office.

According to PDE, those 30 grants either “discuss diversity, equity, or inclusion or explicitly explain how the project is intended to improve outcomes for a specific demographic group.”

The report also points to tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded education grants that fund similar programs, such as millions of dollars for consultants that promote critical race theory.

This theory, commonly called CRT, is based on the idea that the U.S. was founded on racism and remains inherently racist to this day. CRT teaches American history through the lens of racism and slavery, hence citing not 1776 as America’s founding but 1619, when the first African slaves arrived in the colonies.

DEI or CRT spending is often hidden behind technical jargon or smuggled into other initiatives like Social Emotional Learning or even less well-known jargon.

For instance, one grant for $1,688,668 funded coordination between Temple University (PA) and The School District of Philadelphia and other schools focused on “community policing, trauma informed conflict emphasizing racial/historical and intergenerational trauma, impacts of social media on conflict and conflict escalation and management, anti-bias education, restorative practices.”

Terms and jargon of this kind often represent similar doctrines and ideas as CRT, albeit in various forms and with more nuance. Pairing these ideas with controversial teachings on sexuality and gender has also become common.

Some more examples from the report:

• $1,000,000 was granted to Reach Out West End (CA) for a project to improve school safety in Jurupa Valley Unified School District with content “on LGBTQIA+ issues aligned with SB 857, mental/behavioral health, substance use prevention and/or conflict mediation.”
• Ocean County (NJ) was granted $1,000,000 to reduce violence in school communities. The proposal equates “teasing” to “oppression, and all forms of violence.”
• Milwaukee Public School’s (WI) $986,757 project to “promote racial equity” worked with “Courageous Conversations about Race, Crisis Prevention Institute, Your Move MKE, Marquette University Peace Works, and SKY Schools.”

PDE’s report is just the latest in a string of reports showing widespread federal spending on DEI initiatives in education.

“Sadly, hijacking a $100M Department of Justice school safety grant program to line the pockets of DEI activists is just one of the many ways the Biden Administration chose to prioritize equity initiatives over the needs of the American people,” PDE Founder and President Nicole Neily told The Center Square.

Outside of education, the initiatives are also rampant, from the military to the Environmental Protection Agency to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

For instance, FEMA’s latest strategic report names instilling equity as its number one strategic goal, followed by climate resilience second and, finally, preparing for emergencies as its third goal.

As The Center Square previously reported, a 36-page FEMA DEI document published in May 2023 says that FEMA employees should “have conversations about differences in race, religion, age, disability, gender, ethnic origin or sexual orientation.”

“The more diverse leadership, teams and collaborations are, the stronger, more equitable and inclusive a program becomes,” the document continued.

This report was first published by The Center Square.