Oregon AG Rayfield Joins 16-State Push to Defend DEI and Accessibility in Schools

Yesterday, a coalition of 16 attorneys general, including Oregon Attorney General Rayfield, issued guidance to help K-12 schools, colleges, and universities understand the legality, viability, and importance of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility policies and practices in education.

AG Rayfield Guides On DEI & Accessibility In Schools

The guidance from the coalition of attorneys general comes after the U.S. Department of Education issued a controversial “Dear Colleague” letter following a Trump administration executive order.

The letter and FAQ target diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility policies and programming in schools, and districts such as the Eugene School District have signed up to join a lawsuit to oppose Trump’s new DEI Policies in schools.

The coalition includes the attorneys general of Oregon, California, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Nevada, Rhode Island and Vermont.

The AGs reminded educational entities that efforts to seek and support diverse, equitable, inclusive, and accessible student educational experiences are legal.

They noted that longstanding legal precedents supporting these programs can’t be changed by a letter from the Department of Education or an executive order.

Oregon AG Rayfield confirmed that diversity, equity, and inclusion are protected in education to give every student a fair chance to succeed.

While opponents to diversity initiatives have relied on the U.S. Supreme Court’s narrow ruling in Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College (SFFA), the initiatives are beyond the scope of the ruling, which only limited higher education institution’s ability to consider an applicant’s race in and of itself as a positive factor for admission.

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts issued multistate guidance updates after the 2023 ruling that clarifies that:

• The recent executive order and communications from the Department of Education don’t change the law on higher education admissions,
• They cannot and do not prohibit or restrict universities from pursuing and implementing diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility efforts.

The guidance also includes tips to help K-12 schools set their students up for success.

The AG’s guidance emphasizes that higher education institutions can continue to create missions and set goals for student body diversity.

These missions can set equitable outcomes for students and use all legal methods to pursue them.

In addition, it highlighted that all students have the same chance to apply and compete for admission, and schools may still target outreach to potential applicants based on a wide range of characteristics, such as academic interests, geographic residency, financial means, and socioeconomic status, family background and parental education level.