Oklahoma will withhold federal funds from school districts that don’t certify they aren’t using diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, the state’s superintendent announced Tuesday, in what could be the beginning of efforts nationwide to restrict funding for public schools that disobey President Donald Trump’s orders.
Superintendent Ryan Walters said the state’s education department will halt subsidies for any districts that have not yet signed a letter issued by the U.S. Department of Education earlier this month. The withholding would start Friday, April 25, the day after the deadline districts face to sign the federal certification, Walters announced.
The Education Department in early April called on state education chiefs to sign a certification that they’re complying with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits race-based discrimination in federally funded programs, as a condition to continue receiving federal funds. But the certification document makes clear that the department, under Trump and Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, considers DEI programming to be a violation of the anti-discrimination law.
The department gave state chiefs until April 24 to sign the certification themselves and collect responses from school districts. But the implications of the order have been unclear: Educators don’t know with certainty what could run afoul of the department’s orders to eliminate “illegal DEI"—which the administration so far hasn’t explicitly defined—and don’t know which funding streams could be terminated.
Title I funding for services for low-income students and Individuals with Disabilities Education Act grants for services for students with disabilities represent the two largest sources of federal funding for schools. Both flow to local districts through state departments of education.
Walters’ announcement that he’ll essentially withhold those funds on the Trump administration’s behalf is “an ‘Amen’ for the Trump administration in this area,” said Justin Driver, a professor at Yale Law School and author of The Schoolhouse Gate: Public Education, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for the American Mind.
The Education Department did not respond to a request for comment on its planned enforcement following the April 24 deadline for states and districts to certify they’re not using “illegal DEI practices.”
Oklahoma becomes outspoken ally in Trump’s push to rid schools of DEI
Trump’s administration has pushed states and districts to sign the DEI letters quickly.
But the speed and the general lack of clarity around the consequences for noncompliance are “emblematic of the Trump administration’s larger efforts to intimidate and coerce local school districts into submitting to the will of the Trump administration,” Driver said.
As Trump has taken major steps to shrink the Education Department—axing nearly half its staff and signing an order calling for its closure—the agency has ramped up enforcement of the president’s social policy agenda.
“There is a basic hypocrisy in the Trump administration’s educational approach,” Driver said. “That is to say, the Trump administration talks the talk of local control, but walks the walk of federal command.”
With the DEI certification order, he said, “the fundamental aim here is to get school districts concerned and to hit them where they hurt in the pocketbook, even though the legality of the Trump administration’s actions are highly dubious.”
Walters—a political firebrand and outspoken Trump supporter who has drawn national attention for attempting to infuse public schools with religion, his anti-LGBTQ+ efforts, and his agreement with Trump that the federal Education Department should be dismantled—signed the state’s assurance on April 11 in a broadcast on the social platform X.
“Under the leadership of President Trump and Secretary McMahon, we’ve set a national standard that protects our children from discriminatory practices under the guise of DEI,” Walters said in a statement announcing that he would withhold districts’ federal funds. “Oklahoma is proud to stand firm in our commitment to merit-based education and the values that have made America exceptional.”
As of Friday, 446 school districts in the state had signed the certification; 96 had not yet responded, said a spokesperson for Oklahoma’s education department.
Most federal funding for education flows to states first, which typically reimburse districts after they’ve made purchases or investments they intend to cover with federal grants.
Oklahoma has at least two hypothetical legal pathways to withholding funds, but both would require several time-consuming steps.
The state could cite districts’ refusal to sign the DEI certification letter in calling for the Education Department to open a civil rights investigation into those districts that culminates in funding cuts, said Julia Martin, director of policy and government affairs for the Bruman Group, an education law firm that represents states and school districts. Alternatively, the state could update future grant requirements and then penalize districts that fail to comply.
“There are administrative appeals processes for those responses, but they’re processes. They take some time,” Martin said. Those processes also depend on follow-through from federal Education Department employees, who may be stretched thin after sweeping staffing cuts.
In Bixby, a suburb of Tulsa, Superintendent Rob Miller signed and submitted the DEI certification on April 10, after hearing from attorneys that there was no legal reason not to sign it.
There wasn’t anything in it that Miller didn’t generally support, he said.
Still, the anti-DEI certification request “is nothing more than a political exercise trying to gain attention, perpetuate a narrative that schools are running amok and pushing these radical agendas.”
Walters’ threat to cut funding “perpetuates a message that school districts are trying to be noncompliant.”
But they’re not, said Miller, who has previously been at odds with the Oklahoma state superintendent. He sued Walters for defamation last August after the state chief called him “a clown and a liar” for saying the state department of education had not yet provided districts with projections for Title I funds.
Democratic and Republican leaders voice concerns about DEI certification
As of April 23, 19 states and Puerto Rico have said they intend to sign the certification, according to an Education Week tally. Sixteen states have declined to sign it. The remaining states either are still reviewing the certification and haven’t indicated their intentions or haven’t yet made public comments on the matter.
States’ approaches to addressing the certification order have varied: Some state chiefs have signed it, but are not asking districts to do so. Others are asking districts to sign, but haven’t yet disclosed whether state leaders will as well.
Though it’s standard for states and districts to certify compliance with anti-discrimination laws to receive federal funding, experts have said an effort of this magnitude is unusual.
State chiefs from both parties have said their schools already certify compliance as part of plans they file with the Education Department under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and have argued the request hasn’t gone through any kind of regulatory or public-comment process. Some have also argued it violates a federal law aimed at minimizing the administrative burden caused by federal agencies’ information requests.
In an April 22 letter to the federal department that accompanied the signed certification, North Carolina State Superintendent Mo Green told McMahon that previous certifications make this one “redundant.” He also took issue with the department’s lack of definition for DEI.
“This ambiguity raises concerns about providing the requested certification without important clarifications,” Green wrote in his letter. “Since the U.S. Department of Education does not have the legal authority to change assurances and impose new requirements on recipients … it is logical to conclude that the signed certifications can only be enforceable to the extent of the Department’s lawful authority and the law as it exists at the time the assurances are given.”
The certification is the latest push from Trump’s administration to squash DEI in schools. Trump signed an executive order in January seeking to remove any such programming from schools. The Education Department soon after issued a memo and additional document warning districts they’d risk losing federal funds if they retained DEI programming, though the federal government can’t legally influence school curriculum. It launched an “End DEI” portal for the public to report the use of DEI in schools.
The efforts have drawn litigation from the nation’s two largest teachers’ unions, a handful of school districts, and the NAACP, and have sparked confusion among educators as to what exactly would violate the department’s orders.
The department has used the 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down affirmative action as the basis for its maneuvers to eliminate DEI in schools and universities.
It’s a distortion of the ruling, Driver said.
A rare maneuver to pull funding is becoming more common
Historically, it has been rare for the Education Department to seek the cancellation of funds for school districts. But it’s becoming commonplace in Trump’s second term. Trump has issued a number of executive orders that threaten to cut funds from public schools and universities if they disobey him, and has already begun to make good on those threats.
The administration immediately froze grants to Ivy League institutions over allegations of antisemitism on campus and transgender athletes, and is moving to pull funding from Maine over state policies that allow transgender girls to participate in girls’ athletics. It’s deployed full-court presses to enforce Trump’s orders, with numerous federal agencies teaming up to investigate and stop subsidies to universities and states that cross the president.
Congress withheld funds decades ago from schools that flouted Brown v. Board of Education, the landmark 1954 decision that outlawed racial segregation in schools, but Trump’s attempts to use funding as a hammer are unprecedented, Driver said.
“This is just a very different kettle of legal fish than we’ve encountered previously,” he said. “That shouldn’t be especially surprising, because the Trump administration seeks to not just push the legal envelope, but rip up the legal envelope.”
