Taxpayers heavily subsidized the diversity, equity, and inclusion agenda in schools and nonprofits under the Biden administration’s Department of Education. Last week, the Supreme Court cleared one hurdle for the Trump administration to dismantle the department through staffing cuts.
Watchdog groups and the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency recently brought many of the department’s DEI-related grants to the public’s attention, including almost $20 million in grants for an advocacy group with “equity” in its name, $14 million to a teacher certification organization’s diversity project, and numerous other multi-million dollar grants to university DEI-related projects.
“I didn’t go in looking for DEI grants, but when I began researching grants, it was so evident that DEI was the focus for the department,” Robert Stilson, senior research analyst at the Capital Research Center, told The Daily Signal. “DEI is the most harmful in the education system. The federal government should have nothing to do with promoting a radical agenda with taxpayer dollars.”
Parents Defending Education found more than $1 billion in department spending on DEI-related initiatives.
“The Department of Education, especially under the Biden administration, was advocating for diversity, equity, and inclusion in universities and K-12 using grant funding—and funnelling dollars into allies’ pockets—rather than improving reading and writing, to focus on a DEI ideology,” Rhyen Staley, a researcher for Parents Defending Education, told The Daily Signal.
One example is a $3.9 million grant to the School District of Philadelphia spanning January 2023 to December 2027 for a program called “Relationship First,” which is a “restorative” system to create a “more positive and equitable school climate.”
The grant is said to help “students whose personal and/or family circumstances have been negatively impacted by marginalization, structural racism, and/or economic inequity,” according to the grant description.
The school district has been a good steward of the federal funding, school district spokeswoman Christina Clark told The Daily Signal.
“Recent actions coming out of Washington, including significant cuts to and dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education, are understandably raising concern about impacts on the educational landscape across the country, including the School District of Philadelphia,” Clark said.
“While the district navigates the evolving issues, our commitment to teaching every student will not waiver, and the district’s mission is to work with urgency to provide every student—no matter their race, ethnicity, immigration status, national origin, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, familial status, religion, or person’s abilities—with the opportunity to achieve positive life outcomes,” Clark added.
From fiscal years 2022 through 2025, the department gave $19.2 million to the Center for Leadership and Educational Equity for its DEI initiatives, according to an analysis by the Capital Research Center, which investigates nonprofits.
The Center for Leadership and Educational Equity’s website distinguished between equity and equality, stating student potential can’t be reached by equal opportunity alone.
“This aim cannot be reached by simply giving learners an ‘equal,’ or same, education. A vision of educational equity requires that each learner gets what they need,” the organization’s equity statement says. “Educators and school leaders need to take goal-driven action to disrupt oppressive systems, policies, and practices that create and sustain achievement, opportunity, and wealth gaps for historically underserved students.”
Center staff did not respond to phone and email inquiries from The Daily Signal Thursday and Friday.
Stilson, of the Capital Research Center, noted that in IRS Form 990s, tax-exempt organizations are required to show how much of their income came from taxpayers.
“Several of these organizations were heavily reliant on government funding for their budget, but that’s federal, state, and local,” he said. “So, it’s not clear if closing the Department of Education funding would have a big impact.”
In 2022 and 2023, the department awarded $9.5 million to the Mid-Atlantic Equity Consortium, according to the Capital Research Center analysis. The consortium’s website says, “For over two decades, MAEC was the long-time home of a regional technical assistance center funded by the U.S. Department of Education.”
The consortium hasn’t shied away from politics, denouncing the Supreme Court decision in 2022 to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide because the 2022 ruling “reduces choices for childbearing people.”
The consortium’s 2021 annual report stated, “At MAEC, we continued our work addressing multiple social inequities and injustices, including the politicization of issues as disparate as critical race theory and school masking policies, while adjusting to virtual learning. These social conditions are all part of the new normal of education.”
Staff from consortium did not respond to phone and email inquiries from The Daily Signal.
The department also awarded more than $10 million in grants from December 2021 through January 2025 to the Intercultural Development Research Association, which conducts research and litigation related to education issues.
“We build coalitions, develop research-informed policies, and support community-centered advocacy,” the organization’s website’s “Who We Are” page says. The page says it advocates for “diverse partners, including educators, students, business and faith leaders, and other advocates to challenge censorship laws, anti-DEI efforts that target systemically marginalized students.”
An association spokesperson did not respond to email and phone inquiries from The Daily Signal Thursday and Friday.
In 2022, the Education Department awarded $14.2 million for a three-year grant to the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards to support a project titled “From the Margins to the Center: Supporting Teacher Diversity, Quality, and Retention” to support “educators of color,” according to the group’s press release.
“These funds will allow us to support large numbers of educators on their National Board journeys, which will in turn put more accomplished teachers in classrooms around the country, address the teacher shortage, and increase equity in education,” Peggy Brookins, president and CEO of the National Board said in a public statement at the time of the grant.
The National Board is a certification organization with a board of directors that includes the heads of two major unions, National Education Association President Becky Pringle and American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten.
A National Board spokesperson did not respond to inquiries from The Daily Signal submitted through its web portal or by phone.
In 2024, the Education Department awarded $4 million to the MK Level Playing Field Institute (which does business as SMASH) for “innovations in programming strategies that promote equity in computer science pathways for historically excluded students,” according to the grant description.
The grant project description says, “Student identities underrepresented in the computing field will be prioritized in the selection process (e.g., Black, Latine, Native, low-income, girls, non-binary).”
A SMASH spokesperson did not respond to email inquiries on Thursday and Friday. The organization did not list a phone number on its website.
Besides funding nonprofit initiatives, the Department of Education pushed DEI efforts within colleges and universities, as the watchdog group Parents Defending Education found in its investigations. From there, it was usually pushed into classrooms.
In 2023, the department issued a five-year $6 million grant for Florida International University’s Project DIG.
“Project DIG will complement the work of M-DCPS [Miami-Dade County Public Schools], which also was recently funded by the U.S. Department of Education to address shortages of school-based mental health service professionals, focusing on recruiting and retaining credentialed mental health providers from diverse backgrounds,” the university announcement said.
Florida International University did not respond to email inquiries Friday. A university spokeswoman reached on Friday said she was familiar with The Daily Signal’s email inquiry and would attempt to get a response for the story, but no response was received by publication time.
In 2023, the Department of Education gave $4.7 million to Johns Hopkins University for the RESET program, short for “Recruit Educate Support Evaluate and Train,” for training school counselors.
“The new recruits will be drawn from diverse populations, including people of color and LGBTQ+ populations,” stated a Hopkins announcement of the grant.
A Johns Hopkins spokesperson did not respond to inquiries by email and phone Friday for this story by publication time.
In 2023, the department awarded a $3.2 million grant to Springfield College in Massachusetts for school counseling.
“The grant was written to enhance the training and number of racially and linguistically diverse school counselors in Springfield and Holyoke Public Schools and help address the increasing mental health needs among K-12 students,” the college announced.
A college spokesperson did not respond to inquiries for this story by email or phone.
The department awarded $2.6 million to Marquette University in 2023 for a program to “expedite the training of diverse school counselors to help address the need for mental health care among K-12 students in high-need schools.”
A Marquette spokesman said that he would attempt to provide a comment but did not as of publication time.
In 2023, the department awarded a $1.26 million grant to the University of Iowa to train elementary school teachers to recruit and train 40 more elementary teachers “with a focus on diversifying the educator workforce” for the initiative called the UI Teacher Education for Equity through Partnerships.
“It is important for us to work to have a teaching force that reflects the demographic makeup of the students they teach. This is not the case in Iowa, and we need to help work to rectify that,” Mark McDermott, associate dean for teacher education and student services at the University of Iowa, said in the press release announcing the grant.
“In addition, research shows that having a teaching force that includes teachers from many different racial and ethnic backgrounds is beneficial for all students in terms of improving learning opportunities,” he added.
A University of Iowa spokesperson did not reply to email and phone inquiries Friday for this story as of publication time.