The Department of Education under President Joe Biden spent more than $1 billion on DEI-driven grants to public school districts, universities, and nonprofits since 2021, according to a report released by watchdog group Parents Defending Education (PDE).
The 162 grants funding DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) initiatives were aimed at hiring, educational programming, and mental health training, according to PDE. Total price tag: $1,002,522,304.81. PDE said that's a conservative estimate.
"These numbers are based on available data and not exact. The number of districts and students is likely much higher. Some districts, such as Miami-Dade County Public Schools, is connected to multiple grants and is therefore only counted once in the numbers," PDE wrote in its report.
PDE broke down the DEI grant distribution into three buckets:
- DEI Hiring: $489,883,797.81
- DEI Programming: $343,337,286
- DEI-Based Mental health/Social Emotional Learning (SEL): $169,301,221
"Some grants covered two or all of the above categories, in those cases, the grant was counted only towards the most dominant category," PDE said in its report.
In one example, PDE found that the "School District of Philadelphia was given $3,973,175 for its restorative justice program that is modeled after Oakland Unified School District's (Calif.), and a program advisor is a far-left activist and former Communist Party USA member."
Meanwhile, a report released by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) in September found that nearly one-third of K-12 students across the country are behind their grade level as of the end of the 2023-24 school year.
PDE, which bills itself as a "national grassroots organization working to reclaim our schools from activists imposing harmful agendas," first shared its report with Fox News.
"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," PDE researcher Rhyen Staley told the outlet. "This needs to change by placing children's learning at the forefront of education, instead of prioritizing race-based policies and DEI."
President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Linda McMahon to be his education secretary to replace outgoing Miguel Cardona.
Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
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