Denying Black History is Morally Reprehensible

“Morally reprehensible” is the devastating judgmental phrase that Acting Assistant Secretary of Education for Civil Rights Craig Trainor uses in his opening sentence of his February 14, 2025 “Dear Colleague” letter spelling out new rules and coercive threats for race conscious practices in education. What is truly morally reprehensible is Trainor’s gaslighting of the history of educational racism in the United States. He cites harm specifically to white and Asian students due to “institutions’ embrace of pervasive and repugnant race-based preferences” while NOT ONCE mentioning the historic, persistent and often violent denial of educational opportunities — and, hence, economic and social opportunities — to Black Americans across centuries. Erasing Black History is shameful. Trainor writes as if generations of segregated and under-funded schools were fiction, as if Thurgood Marshall, Brown v. Board of Education, the Little Rock Nine, James Meredith, Medgar Evers, John Lewis, Martin Luther King, Jr. and so many other who sacrificed so much to gain equal educational opportunity for Black students never existed. He writes with studied agnosticism of the racist barriers that persist even today that prevent too many Black Americans from realizing full participation in the lifelong benefits of education at all levels.

The Dear Colleague letter follows President Trump’s executive order banning any considerations of diversity, equity and inclusion from federal agencies and contractors; a federal judge has issued an injunction against that order. Let’s not be naïve: the campaign against DEI is a campaign against ensuring greater access to education, economic and social opportunities for persons of color, women, LGBTQ persons and others who do not conform to the white male stereotype that the current anti-DEI movement considers intrinsically more competent. But of all of the diversity possibilities, the campaign against DEI is specifically a campaign against the ongoing progress of Black Americans in education as well as the corporate and civic sectors after centuries of horrific racial injustice and persistent discrimination.

The anti-DEI movement reinvents historic truths. Citing a favorite theme of the movement to debilitate and even destroy teaching the truth of U.S. racial history, Trainor writes that, “Educational institutions have toxically indoctrinated students with the false premise that the United States is built upon ‘systemic and structural racism’ and advanced discriminatory policies and practices.” Maybe the descendants of the 272 slaves sold by the Jesuits in 1838 to save Georgetown University would like a word with Trainor about his denial of “systemic and structural racism.”

Remediating the centuries-long harms of race discrimination against Black persons is consistent with Catholic social justice (something we might expect a graduate of Catholic U’s law school to know) but Trainor dismisses social justice as a “nebulous goal” rather than a moral imperative to uphold the rights and dignity of persons who have suffered grave historic oppression. His desire to stamp out any care or compassion for Black students, faculty and staff becomes starkly clear in his utterly mean-spirited attack on affinity group residence halls and graduation activities, small things but deeply meaningful for many students who are often the first in their families to earn degrees.

Picking on campus social life and graduation ceremonies reveals a perniciously wrong interpretation of the law on race discrimination. The law does require all persons on campus to receive equal opportunity — part of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson, Title VI was developed specifically in response to the historic discrimination that Black students suffered throughout education, and all students benefit from that law. So long as all persons on campus have access to the same benefits and opportunities, the law does not prohibit colleges and universities from using racial equity principles in their mission statements or from developing educational and social programs around topics of racial equity. Contrary to what Trainor writes, there is no legal prohibition against a college’s decision to abandon standardized testing, or to have necessary and valuable campus education programs to teach students how to construct productive communities amid great diversity. Trainor cites the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (SFFA) to justify his extensive list of activities he says are now prohibited, but in fact, the SFFA case does not support that list and the Acting Assistant Secretary does not have the authority to make new law on his own.

Not content to enumerate his ideas about what ending race discrimination on campus might look like, Trainor weaponizes his presentation with a threat to harm the federal funding of institutions who fail to comply with his demands, along with a very short 14-day window at the end of which the inquisitions will supposedly begin. Some institutions will likely “obey in advance” and scrub their websites, policies and programs of any references to race, diversity, equity, inclusion or social justice. We can hope that more will stand and fight in solidarity and with conviction about the worth of our missions and goals.

Trinity stands strong and in solidarity with our students, faculty and staff. We welcome all persons who can thrive here. One of the nation’s historic Catholic women’s colleges (Title IX allows single gender schools to continue as such), we are also a Predominantly Black and Hispanic Serving Institution by US Department of Education classifications. We welcome students of all races, religions, ethnicities and backgrounds, and we also welcome men in our dual enrollment, graduate and professional programs. We know a little something about American sociology on the topic of race. Into the early 1990’s, Trinity was still a predominantly White, Catholic institution. But as we welcomed more students from the District of Columbia and nearby counties, our population changed, slowly at first and then rapidly. “White flight” is a sociological reality for urban schools, a phenomenon not only about race but also social class and perceptions of prestige. We grew and thrived in new directions not by discriminating or practicing affirmative action, but rather, by welcoming and supporting the new populations of students who find at Trinity a place of support, affirmation, compassion and intellectual challenge. We have lived the American opportunity, promise and challenge of race, ethnicity and social class.

Racial hatred is America’s Original Sin, unresolved and largely unrepented across the American centuries. Racial hatred debilitates lives, warps communities, depresses economic progress, marginalizes persons of great potential and too often kills people whether through direct assaults or the slow long term decline of hope and opportunity. Educational institutions, of all places in our society, must be those places where rising generations learn how to live together, how to respect and appreciate difference, how to lift up the merit in each other and how to confront the prejudices that drive wedges and defeat our more aspirational values as a nation. Colleges and universities, in particular, must be the places that teach our future leaders how to make the idea of the peaceful, productive polity work in the most diverse society the world has ever known. We can’t teach that by ignoring the truth of our history, by submitting to the inappropriate pressures of political operatives, by adopting a stance of institutional neutrality that betrays our entire purpose in higher education.

History is watching us right now. Higher education must rise to the moment with courage and conviction, not just for the sake of our own freedoms and perquisites, but because our freedom to teach and to live mission well makes it possible for our students to learn, grow and thrive. How we respond to the current threats will shape America’s history for generations.