Citing concerns about DEI, the U.S. Department of Education has halted funding for programs that support students with combined hearing and vision loss in eight states. “How low can you go?” one advocate asked. “How can you do this to children?”
https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-dei-students-education-deaf-blind-grant-funding
The funding amounts to approximately one million dollars, which is couch change in the federal budget, but the administration cites concerns about fairness. Apparently, the entitled deafblind kids want special treatment; that just won't do.
But wait -- it's worse than that. The Education Department justifies this by pointing to part of the 2023 grant application where they cite a commitment to combat "inequities, racism, [and] bias." We'd have to do some digging as to whether it was tacit or explicit in this case, but under the Biden Administration, some nod to DEI principles was expected, if not required, in grant applications.
So because the eight states (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin) included some mandatory boilerplate about diversity, the new administration spitefully cancels the grant, apparently based on a word search.
Incompetent. Disgusting. Shameful. And business as usual for this maladministration.