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Feds say popular school program for Latinos discriminates against other ethnicities
The United States Department of Education is demanding that Broward County Public Schools sever ties with Latinos in Action.
A popular school club and elective, active in 16 states, is in the crosshairs of the Trump Administration.
The United States Department of Education says Latinos in Action is discriminatory and is demanding that Broward County Public Schools sever ties with the group.
WATCH HERELatinos in Action is both a club and an elective class, available in 44 Broward County middle and high schools.
“Latinos in Action is a fantastic program, we have it in a number of our middle and high schools, and they do really, really good work,” said school board chair Debbi Hixon.
The DOE doesn’t agree with Hixon. The Department says Latinos in Action excludes students based on race. The DOE’s Office for Civil Rights sent a letter to Broward Superintendent Howard Hepburn that says, in part, “First, Latinos in Action appears to be explicitly organized around the concept of Latino ethnicity.”
The letter goes on to say, “The About LIA webpage states that the end goal of everything we do is to empower Latino youth to lead and strengthen their communities through college and career readiness,” which the DOE takes exception with, stating, “The Latinos in Action program, however, is designed for and exclusive to Latino students. It is not, for instance, available to Black, white, or Asian American students.”
“In the letter it references they feel the group is racially discriminating, however, all students are allowed to take these elective leadership courses, it’s not discriminating and my real concern is today it’s Latinos in Action, what does that mean tomorrow?” said school board member Rebecca Thompson.
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Thompson and Hixon each said the letter was a complete surprise.
“Yes, absolutely was a surprise, wasn’t on the radar as far as I know, and it looks like they just went on the Latinos in Action website and drew some information from there,” Hixon said, adding that the DOE did not reach out to Broward County Public Schools to discuss the Latinos in Action course before sending the accusatory letter.
The DOE wants confirmation within the next five days that the school district will cut ties with Latinos in Action by the spring semester or face losing a $30 million grant for magnet school programming.
“I think for obvious reasons they are targeting select groups of people throughout our country and because of the sheer fact that it says Latinos in Action, they are going after this group,” Thompson said.
Hixon said she hopes that altering the Latinos in Action elective course will be enough to satisfy the officials in Washington.
Miami-Dade County Public Schools does not have an affiliation with Latinos in Action, although several other Florida school districts do.