The Department of Justice filed a federal lawsuit this week against Minneapolis Public Schools, alleging that the district violated federal civil-rights law by embedding race-based employment preferences into its collective bargaining agreement with the teachers’ union.
Filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, the complaint challenges contract provisions that prioritize teachers from “underrepresented populations” during layoffs, reassignments, and recalls, and that grant exclusive employment benefits to members of a third-party program known as “Black Men Teach Fellows.”
Federal officials argue the policies violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on race or sex in employment.
Attorney General Pamela Bondi described the case as a necessary intervention to restore basic fairness, stating that public education must remain “a bastion of merit and equal opportunity—not DEI.”
Harmeet Dhillon, who leads the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, emphasized that employers may not lawfully provide different terms and conditions of employment based on protected characteristics.
The lawsuit seeks a permanent injunction barring Minneapolis Public Schools from enforcing the disputed provisions or adopting similar policies in future contracts.
Minneapolis Public Schools has publicly adopted racial staffing targets, including a goal for BIPOC employees to constitute at least 40% of staff by 2026 and for 54.3% of new hires to identify as BIPOC by the 2026–27 school year.
These targets are explicitly tied to employment decisions, creating a system in which demographic outcomes take precedence over merit-based evaluation. The Justice Department argues that such quotas directly conflict with federal law and undermine equal-opportunity principles.
Minneapolis is not an exception. The lawsuit highlights a broader pattern visible across major public-school systems: administrators operate with minimal oversight, prioritize political initiatives, and face few consequences for decisions that do not improve academic outcomes.
Chicago Public Schools offers one of the most striking examples of how this insulation from accountability manifests in practice.
As The Gateway Pundit previously reported, a review released by the Chicago Public Schools Office of Inspector General found that district employees misused $23.6 million in travel spending.
The investigation documented luxury hotel stays costing more than $1,000 per night, airport limousine services, and extended leisure travel charged to taxpayers under the label of “professional development.” One teacher expanded a four-day conference into a weeklong Hawaiian resort vacation costing $4,700.
A principal used district funds to book a Las Vegas Strip suite for an anniversary celebration, adding unauthorized days to the trip. 24 staff members from a single school spent more than $50,000 attending one conference in Las Vegas.
More than $142,000 was spent on international travel to destinations including South Africa, Egypt, Finland, and Estonia, trips that included sightseeing excursions with little or no connection to classroom instruction.
Of the total $23.6 million identified as misspent, $14.5 million came from 2023 and 2024—years when CPS students were still grappling with the academic fallout of a 78-week school closure pushed by the Chicago Teachers Union.
Federal pandemic funds intended to support learning recovery were instead diverted to travel perks.
Academic outcomes reflect the consequences of these priorities. Only about 40% of CPS students read at grade level. Roughly one in four meets grade-level expectations in math. Chronic absenteeism affects nearly 45% of students districtwide and more than half of high school students.
In some neighborhoods, reading and math proficiency falls into the single digits. A district failing to deliver basic literacy used emergency recovery dollars for nonessential travel rather than instruction.
New York’s public-school system demonstrates the same disconnect between spending and results. New York spends more than $39,000 per student annually, the highest per-pupil figure in the United States. Yet nearly half of students statewide fail to meet basic reading benchmarks.
Despite these outcomes, lawmakers have continued to allocate funding toward politically driven initiatives. Recent budget proposals included $8 million to “increase teacher diversity,” even though New York City’s teaching workforce is already approximately 42% Black—nearly double the city’s Black population share.
Additional appropriations included $250,000 for “racial and cultural inclusivity” programs, $3 million for an Adirondack exhibit on African American history, and more than $350,000 for conferences designated for “underrepresented” educators.
At the same time, New York City public schools serve approximately 154,000 homeless students—children who require extended instructional time, tutoring, and stability to succeed academically.
New York illustrates a central reality of public education today: funding alone does not drive success when resources are diverted away from instruction and toward ideological or symbolic projects.
Viewed together, Minneapolis, Chicago, and New York reveal a systemic problem. Public-school systems are not failing because they lack money. They are failing because accountability has eroded.
Bureaucracies face little pressure to comply with civil-rights law, manage taxpayer funds responsibly, or deliver measurable academic improvement. Families are expected to remain in these systems regardless of outcomes.
School choice directly addresses this imbalance. Charter schools and scholarship programs introduce accountability by allowing families to exit failing institutions. Charter schools typically provide 30-50% more instructional time than traditional district schools, a factor strongly linked to higher academic achievement.
A study from North Carolina found that students who entered charter schools in ninth grade were roughly 30% less likely to commit crimes than peers who remained in traditional public schools.
Choice does not weaken public education. It exposes failure, rewards performance, and forces improvement. Systems that deliver strong outcomes retain students. Systems that prioritize politics over learning lose them.
The Minneapolis lawsuit underscores a fundamental truth. When school districts adopt discriminatory employment practices, misuse public funds, and tolerate academic collapse, families deserve alternatives.
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