UPDATE: On September 27, 2024, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights closed this complaint as resolved. The district told OCR that the Indigenous Student Council is open to all students and updated its website to say so. See the letter here.
On February 14, 2024, Parents Defending Education (now Defending Education) filed a complaint against Burnsville High School in Burnsville, Minnesota, with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. The complaint claimed the school was breaking Title VI, a law that bans race and national origin discrimination in programs that receive federal funds. It also claimed the school was violating 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.
At the time, the district’s website said its Indigenous Student Council was “[o]pen to all eligible American Indian/Alaska Native (Indigenous) Students, grades 7-12.” Of the seven student affinity groups listed, it was the only one that said it was not open to everyone.
Read the full complaint and see its evidence below:
