PDE report: DOJ spends over $100 million on controversial DEI education programs in four years

By lauraharris // 2025-01-06

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The Department of Justice (DOJ) spent over $100 million on education programs related to restorative justice, social-emotional learning and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) from 2021 to 2024, with grants awarded to over 900 school districts in 36 states.
The spending included 45 million on restorative practices and social-emotional learning, 32 million on DEI initiatives, 20 million on consultant certifications and 10 million on hiring new administrators like restorative justice facilitators.
The report highlighted several controversial grants, such as nearly two million to the Minnesota Department of Education to promote "anti−racism and anti−oppression" practices and nearly one million to New Jersey's Ocean County to equate "teasing" with "oppression and all forms of violence."
Parents Defending Education (PDE) emphasized that the DOJ's STOP School Violence Program aimed to replace disciplinary actions with social-emotional learning, potentially disrupting class time for more students. PDE also noted that the reported numbers are likely underestimates due to data limitations.
Additionally, the department has spent at least $1 billion on grants promoting DEI since 2021 across 42 states and Washington, D.C., as highlighted in a separate PDE report. Critics argue this spending is wasteful and prioritizes far-left ideologies over proven educational methods.

A Parents Defending Education (PDE) report has revealed that the Department of Justice (DOJ) spent more than $100 million on education programs related to restorative justice, social-emotional learning and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) over the past four years. According to the report, which analyzed grant distributions between 2021 and 2024, the DOJ awarded and distributed $100,113,942 in grants to over 900 school districts across 36 states. The spending includes $45,207,178 on "project proposals that broadly mention restorative practices or social-emotional learning," $32,084,529 on proposals that discuss DEI or explicitly explain how the project is intended to improve outcomes for a specific demographic group, $19,881,347 on "certification for consultants that often promote divisive concepts such as critical race theory, critical gender theory and queer theory" and $10,296,100 on proposals for hiring new administrators like a "restorative justice facilitator." It also highlights several controversial grants, including nearly two million awarded to the Minnesota Department of Education to "create safe learning environments where practices of anti-racism and anti-oppression are embedded" and nearly one million given to New Jersey's Ocean County to reduce violence while equating "teasing" to "oppression and all forms of violence." The PDE report also shed light on the DOJ's STOP School Violence Program, which aims to "improve school climate" by switching from disciplinary actions to "social-emotional learning." (Related: DEI is collapsing across corporate America.) "More often than not, when schools mention 'improving school climate' they mean replacing exclusionary discipline with restorative practices and social-emotional learning," PDE wrote. "Exclusionary discipline removes the disruption from the classroom, allowing the rest of the class to continue learning. Restorative practices, on the other hand, often disrupt class time for more students, as both the offender(s) and victim(s) in an incident are brought together to discuss what happened and 'repair harm.'" The PDE said the reported numbers were based on available data, with some counties with multiple grants being counted only once. "The real number is likely much higher," the group said.

PDE: Education Department has spent $1B on grants promoting DEI in America's schools since 2021

Aside from the DOJ, the PDE also published another report in December claiming that the Education Department has spent at least $1 billion on grants promoting DEI in America's schools since 2021. The report, which analyzed nearly four years of publicly available data from the department, revealed that the administration of outgoing President Joe Biden awarded 229 grants across 42 states and Washington, D.C., with a clear DEI motive, totaling $1,002,522,304.81. The grants were divided into three categories: $489,883,797 for race-based hiring; $343,337,286 for general DEI programming; and $169,301,221 for DEI-based mental health training and programming. It also highlights several examples of grants, including a $3,974,496 grant to the School District of Philadelphia for a restorative justice program led by a former Communist Party USA member, a $4 million grant for a "culturally responsive" computer science summer camp and a $38,000 grant for a one-day professional development training by an equity consultant. Biden has signed several executive orders mandating DEI actions in federal agencies and the Department of Education under Secretary Miguel Cardona has made fostering DEI a key priority. The term "equity" appears over 70 times in the department's 2022-2026 strategic plan, and DEI is listed as one of the six "focus areas." Michele Exner, a senior advisor at PDE, characterized the spending as wasteful, noting that American students' academic performance is declining. Meanwhile, Rhyen Staley, a researcher at PDE, stated that the report demonstrates how the Biden administration has been "incentivizing" far-left ideologies in U.S. schools rather than "rigorous, proven methods of instruction," at the expense of students' education. "The only people or groups to benefit from the enormous amount of grant funding are the universities, administrators and DEI consultants, at the expense of children's education," Staley said. "This needs to change by placing children's learning at the forefront of education, instead of prioritizing race-based policies and DEI." More related news about DEI policies can be found at Wokies.news. Watch the video below where Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL) says Biden is going to undercut Trump as much as he can.

This video is from the TrendingNews channel on Brighteon.com.

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PDE: Education Department has spent $1B on grants promoting DEI in America's schools since 2021

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