Democratic Dissent: Resistance to Race-Evasive Education Policies Under the 2017–21 Trump Administration

The first Trump administration opposed race-conscious federal educational policies to redress state-sponsored discrimination and related racial inequality. Drawing on extensive qualitative data, we analyzed the mechanisms, collaborations, and strategies used to resist Trump’s first-term civil rights rollbacks for students. Resistance included (a) civil rights oversight and guidance from nongovernment groups, (b) unified messaging to counter attacks on public education, (c) congressional oversight of the Department of Education as well as preservation of its civil rights funding, and (d) litigation on procedural and novel grounds. This study probes how elected officials, intermediary organizations, and civil rights lawyers developed effective strategies and how they might persist today given revitalized federal efforts to abolish race-conscious education policies and constrain students’ civil rights.