UPDATE: On November 12, 2024, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights dismissed this complaint. See the letter here.
On May 16, 2022, Parents Defending Education filed a complaint against Avonworth School District in Pennsylvania with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. The complaint asked OCR to look into possible violations of Title VI, a law that bans race discrimination in programs that receive federal funds, and the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause, which bars government bodies, including public schools, from treating people differently because of their race except in rare cases.
In June 2021, the school board approved $19,500 for an “equity audit” by Insight Education Group. The firm surveyed 505 people and held focus groups with 81, then presented its findings to the board in April 2022. It recommended that Avonworth “[d]evelop a specific planning process… to mitigate the disproportionalities discovered in the data review.” In other words, the audit found differences based on race. The complaint argued that this deserved a federal investigation.
Read the full complaint and see its evidence below:
