Stay informed by setting aside one hour a month to read the NCSD newsletter! | | NASHVILLE, TN–NCSD Director Gina Chirichigno recently attended Magnet Schools of America's national conference, during which students from Metro Nashville Public Schools performed their Emmy-winning song, "Every Student Known." The performance was followed by a powerful address by MNPS Superintendent Adrienne Battle. | | |
SCHOOL INTEGRATION BILL INTRODUCED IN MINNESOTA
Via Minnesota House of Representatives: "On March 27th, Rep. Cedrick Frazier (DFL–New Hope) introduced the Integration Resolution Bill (HF 2899), a bold new vision for ensuring every Minnesota student has access to an equitable, integrated, and well-resourced public education. The Integration Resolution Bill directly confronts Minnesota’s entrenched school segregation—both racial and economic. It lays out a bold strategy to build inclusive, opportunity-rich learning environments that can improve academic outcomes for students from People of Color, Indigenous (POCI) communities while benefiting every student in our multiracial democracy....HF 2899 was developed through a nine-month collaborative work group process facilitated by the Minnesota Education Equity Partnership (MnEEP) and its Race Equity for Accelerating Learning (REAL) Network—a statewide group of education leaders, race equity advocates, legal experts, practitioners, and POCI community members."
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TAKE ACTION MAY 3
Via Legal Defense Fund: Leading Civil Rights Groups Unite to Defend Black History, Books, Art and Culture - "[A] coalition of leading civil rights groups announced they have signed onto an affirmation in defense of Black history, texts and art, as the Trump administration continues to attack the critical civic infrastructure that allows the public to understand that Black history is American history and that empowers all in the fight to protect democracy..."
#HandsOffOurHistory / Freedom To Learn National Week of Action:
- Washington, DC: On Saturday, May 3 join a demonstration in defense of the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
- Across the country: join in the demonstration from your community by visiting your local museums and libraries. Seek out exhibitions and collections that uplift Black Americans and share photos online with the hashtag #HandsOffOurHistory.
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RELIGIOUS CHARTER SCHOOL CASE HEADS TO SUPREME COURT
On April 30, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Oklahoma Charter School Board v. Drummond (consolidated with St. Isidore of Seville School v. Drummond), which challenges the nation's first religiously-affiliated charter school. The Court will have to decide: 1) whether a private religious school is a "state actor" when it participates in a state’s charter school program; and 2) whether exclusion of religious schools from state charter school programs runs afoul of the First Amendment. Listen to the oral arguments here.
Brown's Promise and the Diverse Charter Schools Coalition, along with several other nonprofits, submitted an amicus brief focused on why the separation of church and state is critical for a thriving democracy. Several NCSD members—including Professors Derek Black, Elise Boddie, Jack Charles Boger, john powell, and Kevin Welner—also joined an amicus brief submitted on behalf of Constitutional and Education Law scholars. It emphasizes that the Establishment Clause prohibits states from establishing public charter schools for religious instruction. Find all related briefs here.
Learn more via the Education Law Center:
Related stories:
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HOW CAN YOU HELP? SHARE STORIES OF IMPACT.
Via Protect Public Ed - "The American people need to know the harm the Trump Administration is inflicting on students, families, and communities by gutting the U.S. Department of Education. The impact of these cuts will be felt in classrooms across the nation, and especially by the kids that need our support the most. We urge you to share how the U.S. Department of Education has touched your life or the lives of those around you. How have the cuts hurt you, your family, and your community? Your personal stories and those in your networks can shed light on the real-life consequences of these cuts."
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AS REPORTED BY EDUCATIONCOUNSEL
EducationCounsel's most recent update can be found here. Two important highlights:
- "Plaquemines Parish School Board (school desegregation): On 4/29/25, DOJ dismissed a desegregation consent decree that has been in place with the Plaquemines Parish School Board (LA) since 1975. Note that the state’s Attorney General noted that she and Governor Landry have shared with DOJ their 'interest in starting to close out all of their remaining desegregation cases in Louisiana.'”
Other resources:
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JUDGES HALT "DEAR COLLEAGUE" LETTER ENFORCEMENT
Three different U.S. courts blocked the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights from enforcing its "Dear Colleague" letter and subsequent certification requirement. The Department is required to update those subject to the certification. If you have questions about how these decisions may affect you, please seek legal counsel.
Related stories:
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Why judges blocked the Trump admin's school DEI crackdown (NPR, April 26) - "The three opinions, in three separate cases, raise similar concerns – and suggest the Trump administration has work to do to convince the courts its anti-DEI efforts are legal."
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Judge Limits Trump’s Ability to Withhold School Funds Over D.E.I. (New York Times, April 24) - "In one of the cases, Judge Landya B. McCafferty of the Federal District Court in New Hampshire said that the administration had not provided an adequately detailed definition of 'diversity, equity and inclusion.' She also said the policy threatened to restrict free speech in the classroom, while overstepping the executive branch’s legal authority over local schools."
| | | | On April 29, Matthew Soldner (Acting Director of U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences), sent out an email announcing that the Department "has renewed its contract with AEM Corporation to continue the work of [Education Resources Information Center]. The largest library of education research in the world, ERIC serves more than 14 million users annually." This announcement follows an earlier notice describing significant reductions in the ERIC collection. A reduction in services is still anticipated, despite content remaining intact. | | |
VIA LEGAL DEFENSE FUND
Recent statements from LDF that may be of interest to our network:
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NCSD STAFF UPDATES
What We've Been Up to Recently
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NCSD CONFERENCE REFLECTIONS
We're still feeling inspired and energized by our recent national conference, and love hearing from our members, partners, and attendees about the experience.
Here are a few resources we wanted to share:
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ANOTHER SEMESTER IN THE BOOKS WITH REEL POLICY CLINIC
We just wrapped up our projects with Georgetown Law's Racial Equity in Education Law and Policy Clinic. This semester, we had the pleasure of working with two teams of talented and hard-working student attorneys: Tessa Giordano, Sam Suman, Tre Harris, Rhema Brodie-Mends, and Reem Hamaida. We appreciate Professors Janel George and Sophia Tan for their continued partnership.
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The Bell’s student-led podcast, P.S. Weekly (produced in partnership with Chalkbeat New York) recently released two podcast episodes:
The Bell is accepting applications for its Summer Youth Podcast Academy. The program is open to NYC public high school students, including 2025 grads. Learn more here and apply by May 18.
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New from the Bridges Collaborative:
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New podcast episodes:
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Unearthing Joy: Gholdy Muhammad on Teaching with Love - Dr. Gholdy Muhammad argues that identity, skills, intellectualism, criticality, and joy are the key pursuits to cultivate the genius in each of us. Our education system's focus on skills often ignores the other pursuits to the detriment of all kids. Dr. Muhammad joins us to provide a hopeful vision of a world focused on all five pursuits.
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What Was Lost: Noliwe Rooks on The Failures of Integration - The common narrative about integration often frames it as a clear victory—a moment when American education finally confronted injustice. But Dr. Noliwe Rooks argues the reality often led to profound losses for Black communities. Through the story of 4 generations of her own family, Dr. Rooks reveals how integration initiatives frequently dismissed Black voices and visions for education, leaving systemic inequities intact.
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| | The Legal Defense Fund’s Thurgood Marshall Institute released a new report, Black Educators as Essential Workers for Educational Equity, that uses the experiences of Black public-school teachers to inform policy recommendations for promoting and advancing educational equity in elementary, middle, and high schools. Key highlights can be found here. | | | |
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We are excited to announce that PRRAC's new Executive Director, Thomas Silverstein, started this month. Thom can be reached at TSilverstein@prrac.org. Say hello!
Guest edited by Ariel Bierbaum, our first issue of Poverty & Race in 2025 focuses on transportation equity, and features articles by Deborah N. Archer; Kaitlyn Crockett; Aaron Golub, Alex Karner, Gabriel Quiñones-Zambrana; Mariia V. Zimmerman; Sheila Somashekhar, Kathryn Howell, and Gerrit-Jan Knaap; and Kwame Dawes. (Also see "Welcome to PRRAC’s new Executive Director!")
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Two new fact sheets from Learning Policy Institute:
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INDIVIDUAL MEMBER UPDATES
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RESEARCH ADVISORY PANEL (RAP) UPDATES
Learn more about our Research Advisory Panel here.
| | | | NEWS FROM ACROSS OUR COUNTRY | | |
National -
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Jon Stewart & Heather McGhee discuss Anti-DEI Policies and Trump’s Autocracy (The Weekly Show, April 17) - "Well, you know, I wrote this book The Sum of Us and the central story was when many white townspeople, officials decided to drain their public pools rather than integrate them. And I feel like that's what's happening to our entire county right now." (Warning: contains explicit language)
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The Ghost of Jim Crow Haunts Trump’s War on Public Education (Ms. Magazine, April 14) - "Public education is not designed to just serve 'deserving' individuals. It is designed to serve the collective good, and our democracy. Once public [is] gone, it won’t be just poor kids, Black kids or kids with disabilities who suffer. It will be all of us."
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Majority of attempts to ban books in US come from organised groups, not parents (The Guardian, April 8) - "A large majority of attempts to ban books in the US last year came from organised groups rather than parents. 72% of demands to censor books were initiated by pressure groups, government entities and elected officials, board members and administrators, reported the American Library Association (ALA). Just 16% of ban attempts were made by parents, while 5% were brought forward by individual library users."
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The Kids Who Got Bused—And Became Democrats (The Atlantic, April 8) - "In today’s episode of Good on Paper, I talk with the economist Ethan Kaplan about his research on the rare two-way, court-ordered busing program implemented in Jefferson County, Kentucky, in 1975."
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How Newspapers Struggled to Cover Martin Luther King Jr. and Segregation in the North (Time, April 4) - "[M]any of the same newspapers that rigorously covered the civil rights struggle in the South often failed to do so around similar struggles in the North and West....In treating Northern so-called 'de facto' segregation as distinct from Southern de jure segregation under Jim Crow, newspapers obscured the range of state policies including school zoning, busing, teacher placement, disparities in school resources, decrepit school buildings, and double session days that all worked to maintain school segregation in schools across the Northeast, Midwest, and West (or what King and most Black activists at the time called 'the North')."
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Also by this author: MLK in the North: The Civil Rights Leader Understood That Racism and Segregation Were National Problems (Teen Vogue, April 4)
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When a President Knew Diversity Was a Superpower (Harper's Bazaar, April 2) - "The contrast between LBJ's expansive vision and Trump's regressive agenda highlights the fragility of hard-won progress in America's ongoing struggle for equality."
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ATTACKS ON HISTORY LOOM LARGE
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National Park Service restores original Harriet Tubman-Underground Railroad web material (Politico, April 8) - "The National Park Service has reversed edits and restored content to its webpage about Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad in the wake of news reports and public backlash over the changes. 'Changes to the Underground Railroad page on the National Park Service’s website were made without approval from NPS leadership nor Department leadership,' NPS spokeswoman Rachel Pawlitz said late Monday in an email. “The webpage was immediately restored to its original content.”
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Trump says he’s erasing ‘shame.’ Critics say he’s hiding historic truths. (Washington Post, April 11) - "The president’s orders have left historians scrambling to collect and preserve aspects of the public record, as stories of Black, Brown, female or LGBTQ+ Americans are blanched from some public spaces."
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Head of Smithsonian’s Black Museum resigns amid Trump’s attacks (Chicago Crusader, April 11) - "Kevin Young, the director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) in Washington, D.C., resigned as President Donald Trump stepped up attacks with plans to overhaul the Smithsonian’s landmark museums and cultural institutions."
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Trump’s Orwellian Assault on Black History How do you clean up the Black experience in America to gloss over the history of slavery and Jim Crow? (The American Prospect, April 15) - "The Smithsonian joins a long list of worthy public entities that are on the verge of being destroyed by massive budget cuts....But there is something uniquely sinister in Trump’s efforts to expunge the history of slavery and segregation by censoring and starving museums."
- Marc Morial via nola.com: Trump's whitewashing of history is like making gumbo with just one ingredient (April 21) - "Until recently, I believed the Lost Cause myth — and the hideous Jim Crow policies it was used to justify — had been mostly consigned to the garbage heap of history. To the contrary, not only has it been simmering beneath the surface all along, it has come roaring back with a vengeance."
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Black churches back embattled Smithsonian African American history museum after Trump’s order (Associated Press, April 23) - "'I laid my wreath down there to show solidarity with the museum and the history that they present every day,' said Turner, pastor of Empowerment Temple African Methodist Episcopal Church in Baltimore. He said his church has committed to becoming a museum member, and he’s encouraged church members to do the same. Membership costs start at $25 per year, according to an online form on the museum site."
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Florida -
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‘Impossible’ achieved: Okahumpka segregated school restoration breaks ground (WFTV, April 21) - "After five years of raising money, following other failed attempts, community members gathered Monday to ceremonially shovel some dirt. They were marking the occasion, many thought impossible: the beginning of the restoration of Okahumpka’s Rosenwald School." Learn more about this initiate here.
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As SCOTUS reviews lawsuit, 4 bestselling authors talk about bans of their work in Brevard. The U.S. Supreme Court is reviewing a case that critics warn could increase censorship nationwide if plaintiffs prevail. (Florida Today, April 21) - "Stories about gender, sexuality, assault, and power make some people uncomfortable because they force us to confront realities that are easier to ignore. As a mom, I know how scary it is to confront these realities when it comes to our own kids, so I have a lot of compassion for parents who react with a level of fear and anger that suggests these books touch a nerve, maybe even force them to examine parts of their own lives they’d rather not. Beyond that, what scares me is the ideological basis of so much of the backlash, that so much of it seems to be rooted in hate and a desire to control what other people’s children have access to."
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My grandparents attended segregated schools in a city that’s now banning books. Will we ever learn? The same forces that once sought to deny their humanity now seek to erase mine. (LGBTQ Nation, April 11) - "For me, this isn’t about partisan politics; it’s about whether the promise of America extends to everyone....It’s about ensuring that the hard-won victories of previous generations — those who fought to desegregate schools, to secure voting rights, to demand dignity — are not undone by those who fear a more inclusive future."
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Georgia -
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NAACP condemns segregation signs at Rockdale County school (FOX 5 Atlanta, April 24) - "Rockdale County School District is investigating a Honey Creek Elementary School teacher’s unapproved use of racially segregated signs during a Ruby Bridges history lesson, an activity that was not included in the submitted lesson plans."
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Nebraska -
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Historians seeking stories of Jim Crow-era travel utilizing the ‘green book’ (Nebraska Examiner, April 5) - "Stories from the public are being sought to complete research into the state’s history during the Jim Crow-era, when African-Americans used a 'green book' to find food and lodging where they were welcomed. The stories from Nebraskans are needed to complete a two-year research project about this lesser-known chapter of state history."
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Virginia -
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Hanover honors students who integrated county schools in 1963 (VPM, April 24) - "Nine years after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down racial discrimination in schools in Brown v. Board of Education, Hanover County’s NAACP chapter and faith communities were struggling to find families willing to cross racial lines and integrate the county’s public schools, out of fear of retribution. Eight students, including Lee, had accepted the offer."
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Call for Papers: Recovering and Reclaiming Black Education Histories in Teaching and Research - "In Issue 56 of the Bank Street Occasional Paper Series, we are highlighting the history of Black educators, whose intellectual, cultural, and political contributions have provided guidance in navigating various sociopolitical currents in education." Deadline for Submissions: December 1, 2025
- New from EdFund: Concentrated Poverty - "In the United States, over 2.5 million students are enrolled in school districts where over 30% of families live below the poverty line. These areas, referred to as 'concentrated poverty' neighborhoods, face unique geographic challenges not experienced elsewhere."
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Brown Center scholars reflect on how the pandemic reshaped US education - Two of the many important takeaways from this series: 1) "The pandemic reshaped education by exacerbating teacher shortages, disrupting student learning, and fueling political battles over schools." 2) "Public trust in education has declined, with chronic absenteeism and school choice policies jeopardizing the future of public schools."
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Reimagining Education Using Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) to Uplift Student Voice & Advocate for Change - Describing EdTrust’s new student-centered YPAR initiative, author Karena Escalante asserts "nonprofit policy and advocacy organizations in the education space are uniquely positioned to engage young people as co-researchers, enabling them to lead change in their schools and communities through YPAR."
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Inclusive Practices Institute
RootsConnectED
"The 3 day Inclusive Practices Institute offers teams of 3-5 educators and school leaders the opportunity to share in the exploration of the principles and strategies of inclusive education in order to increase access to general education curriculum, support individual needs and ensure all students are meaningfully included in learning."
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Protecting Public Education During the Trump Administration
Education Law Center
"ELC’s 16th annual Education Justice Lecture will feature Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (CT-3), a champion for public education and working families. Congresswoman DeLauro serves as Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee, sits on the Democratic Steering and Policy Committee, and is the Ranking Member of the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Subcommittee...Her keynote remarks will discuss the impact of Trump’s first 100 days in office on public education. Her presentation will be followed by a panel discussion and audience Q&A."
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2025 Equity Now Conference
NYU Metro Center
"Welcoming, Affirming, and Healing Schools, will showcase practical tools, and research-backed strategies and practices, and policies for creating sustainable, equity-focused spaces." Featuring a dynamic keynote address from educational luminary Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings
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JUNE 29-JULY 1
Portland, OR
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Conference on Racial and Social Justice
National Education Association
Promote. Protect. Strengthen. Public Education: A Joyous Rebellion! - The Conference on Racial and Social Justice provides "a unique space for educators, students, parents and families, organizers, community members and leaders to unite for the advancement of Justice in Education."
| | "I think that that determination to find a truly democratic society and to create the truly beloved community, those are things that can be available to us if we’re willing to work with each other and work with the universe on developing them. They don’t come free and easy. They are tough, tough tasks for us to take on." – Vincent Harding | |
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ABOUT NCSD
Founded in 2009, the National Coalition on School Diversity is a cross-sector network of 50+ national civil rights organizations, university-based research centers, and state and local coalitions working to expand support for school integration. NCSD supports its members in designing, enacting, implementing, and uplifting PK-12 public school integration policies and practices so we may build cross-race/cross-class relationships, share power and resources, and co-create new realities.
For a list of NCSD's members, visit our website.
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Contact Us
National Coalition on School Diversity
c/o Poverty and Race Research Action Council
Mailing Address: 740 15th St. NW #300
Washington, DC 20005
Phone: 202-544-5066
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