How the DOJ is using civil rights law to attack school desegregation

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How the DOJ is using civil rights law to attack school desegregation
In conservative push to redefine the 14th Amendment, Los Angeles schools are on the front line

By Russell Payne
Staff Reporter
Published March 10, 2026 6:30AM (EDT)


(Salon) In February, the Department of Justice joined a lawsuit against Los Angeles Unified School District brought by conservative activists, seeking to use the 14th Amendment to repeal a desegregation policy previously ruled unconstitutional.

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The designation was rolled out as part of a 1976 desegregation program, which aimed at improving educational opportunities across the city’s schools. These majority non-white schools are subject to two programs that non-PHBAO schools are not: specifically, smaller class sizes and increased parent-teacher conference requirements. The difference in class size maximums varies by grade level, per school district data, and PHBAO schools are mandated to have two parent-teacher conferences per year.

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While a student’s race or ethnicity is not considered for admission to a magnet school and white students do often attend PHBAO schools, 90% of Los Angeles schools are designated as PHBAO, the lawsuit claims that the program is illegal for having any racially conscious policy.

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The fight over schools in Los Angeles is happening against a backdrop of the conservative legal movement’s push to redefine the 14th Amendment, according to Myron Orfield, a professor of civil rights and civil liberties law at the University of Minnesota. Orfield said that the end goal of the current conservative legal push is to leave states without any tools to directly address racial inequality and to direct resources reserved for addressing racial inequality towards addressing allegations of anti-white discrimination. ......................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2026/03/10/how-the-doj-is-using-civil-rights-law-to-attack-school-desegregation/