A group led by Obama administration alumni and backed by major liberal foundations is advocating for policy changes to ensure increased diversity in public schools.
The Southern Education Foundation in July launched Brown’s Promise, an organization focused on pursuing litigation and research aimed at making public schools more racially diverse, according to the organization’s website. Two individuals who worked in the Obama administration’s Education Department are leading the initiative, and the Southern Education Foundation has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from left-wing charities like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, New Venture Fund, the Tides Foundation and the Ford Foundation in recent years.
Brown’s Promise plans to back racial integration lawsuits similar to ongoing suits in Minnesota and New Jersey that are seeking to force more “racial balancing” at the states’ public schools, The Wall Street Journal reported. (RELATED: Parents Fight Elite High School’s Lottery System Used To Increase Diversity)
The New Jersey suit seeks to allow students from urban school districts to transfer to suburban schools, while the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that plaintiffs in the state’s lawsuit must demonstrate that “racial imbalances” contribute to “inadequate education,” according to WSJ.
Nekima Levy Armstrong, former head of the Minneapolis NAACP and the lawyer representing charter schools that may be impacted by the Minnesota lawsuit, was concerned that the schools may be subjected to racial quota systems, WSJ reported.
Armstrong also said her daughters didn’t feel welcome at a diverse suburban Minneapolis school and that she transferred them to a predominantly-black charter school that was “culturally affirming,” the WSJ reported.
(Photo by OLIVIER TOURON/AFP via Getty Images)
The Supreme Court recently ruled that racial discrimination in higher education admission is unconstitutional. Similarly, the Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that officials could not assign students to schools based on their race, the WSJ reported.
Brown’s Promise is currently working with a lawyer in Colorado to explore the possibility of a racial integration case in the state, according to WSJ.
“I kind of thought of deseg[regation] cases as in my past from law school,” Kathleen Gebhardt, the lawyer, told the WSJ.
Brown’s Promise, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, New Venture Fund, the Tides Foundation and the Ford Foundation did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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