(NEW YORK)—PEN America has filed a “friend of the court” brief, together with the ACLU of Maryland, in a case challenging the Trump administration’s sweeping assault on free speech and ongoing campaign to eliminate views other than those it favors on race, equality and identities in schools and universities.
The brief filed Friday in the U.S. District of Maryland supports a lawsuit brought by the American Federation of Teachers, its Maryland chapter, and the American Sociological Association, challenging the Department of Education Office of Civil Rights’ “Dear Colleague” letter of Feb. 14 that calls on all schools (from pre-K to higher education) to end “illegal DEI practices.”
The brief argues that the Trump administration, through its use of vague language and misinterpretation of Supreme Court precedent on anti-discrimination law, is employing the same intimidation tactics that have been used at the state level to chill academic speech and censor books and classroom topics by instituting unconstitutional government-mandated viewpoints about racial and other identities.
The brief further argues that the Feb. 14 letter is part of the “Ed Scare,” a wave of educational censorship mandated by state legislatures that PEN America has documented over the last four years. The suppression of classroom topics and books bans are designed to erase disfavored ideas about race, racism, and U.S. history, as well as LGBTQ+ identities.
The “Dear Colleague” letter borrows from the Ed Scare’s template by using “anti-discrimination as a pretext to censor speech to the detriment of students, educators, and schools,” according to PEN America’s brief. It notes that the guidance in the letter could “prevent educators from teaching truthfully about slavery, Jim Crow, the Civil Rights Movement, antisemitism, Japanese internment, and other historical developments that require acknowledging disparate treatment of racial groups and the existence of race-based discrimination.”
Hadar Harris, PEN America’s managing director, Washington, DC, said, “We proudly add our voice to this case because we know that this ‘Dear Colleague’ letter is anything but collegial. Weaponizing Title VI and distorting Supreme Court precedent is the Trump administration’s latest strategy to harm America’s schoolchildren. They are twisting longstanding civil rights laws on their head in order to turbocharge efforts to ban books, erase the diverse experiences of students and staff, and rewrite history to comply with the Trump administration’s ideological agenda of exclusion and supremacy. We have seen this before – over and over in states which seek to limit academic freedom, control the freedom to read, and impose restrictions on the complex reality of today’s world.”
With the administration threatening cuts to their federal funding if states don’t comply with the demands of the letter, Harris urged the court to immediately enjoin the letter and any efforts to enforce it.
The Trump administration has made clear that this Dear Colleague letter is no empty threat. Last Thursday, the Department of Education issued yet another directive threatening to withhold federal public school funding from kindergarten through 12 schools that do not certify that they do not have “illegal DEI practices” or other alleged violations of antidiscrimination law as outlined in the “Dear Colleague” letter, giving the schools 10 days to certify compliance. The letter was dated April 3, which presumably gives schools until April 13.
PEN America also spoke out against the Department of Education’s Thursday directive, calling it “an attempt by the federal government to weaponize and coerce public schools by imposing ideological constraints” and warning that it will have “devastating consequences on young people, in particular students of color, disabled students, and LGBTQ+ students.”
PEN America has sounded the alarm on educational censorship since 2021 and has produced extensive research on the topic. PEN America has filed amicus briefs in federal courts contextualizing state-level book bans and curricular restrictions within the broader context of educational censorship around the country.
About PEN America
PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide. We champion the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Our mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible. Learn more at pen.org.
Contact: Suzanne Trimel, strimel@pen.org