U.S. Department of Education

On April 24, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a preliminary injunction blocking the enforcement of a certification requirement from the U.S. Department of Education that threatens schools with a loss of federal funding based on harmful misinterpretations of civil rights laws, threatening Black students’ equal access to a quality education.

Last week, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s Legal Defense Fund sued the United States Department of Education. Rushing to defend diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programming, the NAACP’s lawyers may find themselves on rocky rhetorical terrain: Convincing a federal judge that the nation’s foundation is fundamentally flawed.

So much is wrongheaded about the misguided effort of Elon Musk and his crew to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education. It’s hard to know where to start.

When three former federal secretaries of education opined on the future of their agency, they were at times honest, critical and hopeful. Refusing to despair at calls to abolish the U.S. Department of Education, each leapt to defend it during the January webinar hosted by the Brookings Institution.