Some Virginia Beach school board members want to reinstate diversity, equity and inclusion programs after federal judges on Thursday blocked an executive order targeting them.
The board had recently voted to suspend the programs to avoid losing federal funding.
“The point of the resolution was we need to be in compliance,” said School Board Member Matt Cummings, who opposed the resolution. “Now there’s not a rationale for us to be doing this because there’s an injunction against the executive order.”
Cummings and two others who voted against the resolution are calling for an emergency school board meeting to discuss the policy.
President Donald Trump signed the order in January aimed at ending what it called “radical indoctrination” in schools. The U.S. Department of Education threatened legal action and to withhold federal funds from schools that did not remove programs related to diversity, equity and inclusion.
Federal revenue amounts to nearly 10% of the school division’s funding.
On April 8, board member David Culpepper introduced a resolution to follow the executive order by renaming the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and suspending the division’s equity policy. Cummings’ motion to delay the vote failed, and the school board adopted the resolution the same night.
Culpepper and school board chair Kathleen Brown did not respond to a request for comment Friday.
More than 100 speakers lined up to comment on the school board’s snap decision at the following meeting Tuesday. Some supported the move, but most advocated for DEI, including all the students who spoke.
“We have a process to do a full evaluation and make sure we’re doing the best for our students,” Cummings said Friday. “When that process isn’t followed, I think we end up with bad policy.”
The same thing happened at the federal level, he said, with rushed executive orders and ill-defined terms.
Federal courts in New Jersey, Maryland and Washington, D.C., blocked and postponed directives enforcing the executive order. The three lawsuits said the education department's guidance limits academic freedom and is too vague in defining what types of DEI practices would run afoul of the law.
Virginia Beach schools have started implementing changes, including renaming the Department of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion to the Department of Opportunity and Achievement. An equity dashboard on the division’s website and posters throughout schools referring to an equity plan were taken down.
Many are still unsure about what the ban means for clubs, programs and curriculum.
Heather Sipe, the president of the teachers’ union, taught German in Virginia Beach schools for 23 years.
“As world language teachers, we’re supposed to teach cultural perspectives, diversity, understanding through the lens of someone else,” she said.
“How are we supposed to do that if we don’t know what we’re allowed to say or how the policy will change our curriculum?”
The school board met this week to evaluate whether programs such as Beach Girls Rock and the African American Male Summit comply with the resolution. At a future meeting, the board will also vote on changes to its equity policy.
