Three school districts in Yuma and La Paz counties have missed an April 24 deadline to certify compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color or national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance.
A recent letter from the Department of Education expanded its interpretation of Title VI to indicate Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives and programming violate Title VI. School districts were directed on April 3 to certify their compliance with Title VI if they wish to continue receiving federal funding.
Although the latest federal court ruling prevents enforcement of such certification, the Arizona Department of Education’s (AZED) website listed compliant and non-compliant school districts on Tuesday. Locally, the Southwest Technical Education District of Yuma (STEDY), Western Arizona Vocational District #50 (WAVE) and the La Paz County Sheriff’s Office were listed as ‘out of compliance.’
This doesn’t mean the districts are violating Title VI, however. It only means they haven’t submitted their certification. Although some may consider the inaction to be political, none of the districts in Yuma and La Paz intentionally failed to certify. Rather, the inaction was the result of unawareness.
STEDY Superintendent Tom Tyree explained that the district didn’t know it was being asked to certify compliance.
“We couldn’t find the message that actually came from Grants Management in the Department of Education,” he said. “By 1:30 (Tuesday) afternoon after learning about it mid-morning, we found the form that we were supposed to fill out. I signed it, and we submitted it to the Department of Education.”
Tyree is still trying to figure out why STEDY wasn’t aware of the issue to begin with, but he suspects that communications on this matter may have been sent to his old email address from his time as Yuma County School Superintendent. He also noted that other Career and Technical Education Districts (CTEDs) faced the same situation.
“There were some other schools, at least CTEDs, that were on the naughty list, also, and their response was kind of the same, ‘Hey, we didn’t know anything about it,’” he said. “The other thing is that it came from Grants Management. We don’t get any federal money. We don’t have any grants, and so that wouldn’t have been on our radar.”
The same is true for WAVE, a fellow CTED. Superintendent Amy West shared that the district doesn’t receive any federal money either.
“It's not a not a political statement,” she said. “One of my employees had gone to a conference, and the training she went to said, ‘Well, some people are taking it to their boards and some people are getting legal advice,’ and so we just hadn't taken it to our board yet. So it'll be on our May 8 meeting just to get direction. But I don’t have any policies that, like—I’m not even sure what they’re thinking that we would be doing wrong.”
The La Paz County Sheriff’s Office was even less certain why it was listed as a district. As of May 1, they’re investigating the issue. Rick Medina, community relations manager for AZED, responded to an inquiry from KAWC explaining that the office was listed because “their entity in GME (Grants Management Enterprise) is a public district that is annually allocated IDEA dollars.”
Medina also noted that as a non-compliant district, it can still send in its form as “the federal court injunction has put everything on pause for the moment.”
More Context for Readers:
The ‘Dear Colleague Letter’
The story actually began on Feb. 14, when the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights sent a “Dear Colleague Letter” to K-12 and higher education institutions nationwide. It expanded its interpretation of Title VI and the ruling for SFFA v. Harvard to consider any decisions based on race, color or national origin to be Title VI violations. This includes decisions on admissions, scholarships, financial aid and programming.
On April 3, the Education Department gave a directive for school districts to certify their compliance, and Arizona State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne forwarded the guidance to schools statewide. The most recent deadline for certification was April 24. A communication from AZED noted that “schools that do not comply with the federal guidance risk losing federal funding.”
The guidance has been criticized by some and praised by others because of its stance on DEI initiatives. In the same AZED communication from April 3, Horne said, “... the use of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs does just the opposite and promotes racial discrimination. That has no place in education or society, and I have been working diligently to get it out of schools in Arizona.”
The Legality of Certification
The ‘Dear Colleague Letter’ has been taken to court in various states, but the case ruling with the most impact as of this article’s publication comes from the District of Columbia’s District Court. On April 24, it granted a preliminary injunction blocking the enforcement of the certification requirement. Because of this, the Arizona School Boards Association’s most recent guidance does not state districts must certify compliance anyway, but it does recommend districts continue to follow Title VI requirements and to thoroughly document decisions behind curriculum and program decisions.
