In a long report published Thursday titled the “2022 Agency Equity Plan related to Executive Order 13985,” the U.S. Department of Education specified that it will judge state grant applications for how they incorporate “equity” into their proposals as a potential condition of providing funding.
The plan concerns President Biden’s “Executive Order On Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government,” which he signed as one of his first orders of business when he assumed office in January 2021.
“As we enter a new era of possibility for our nation, education must be at the forefront of our recovery, rebuilding and resiliency efforts,” the report read. “To meet this potential, our nation’s education system must reckon with and address the long-standing disparities that students from underserved communities face in achieving equal education opportunity.”
In a notable change from its former evaluation process, the department will have independent third parties of some sort scrutinize the state- and local-government proposals for an “equity” factor, and possibly deny their requests if the proper social-justice criteria are not met.
“To this end, the Department intends to revise its regulations on the selection criteria used to evaluate applications submitted in a grant competition to allow nonfederal peer reviewers to assess the way in which an applicant integrates equity into its proposed project,” the plan added.
Rather than delivering a quality, rigorous education for as many students as possible, equity will become the department’s first and central priority.
“Consistent with the priorities of the Biden-Harris Administration, the Department has and is focused on strengthening the agency’s processes, policies, strategies, and culture to ensure equity is the foundation upon which all decisions and protocols rest, and to strengthen the agency’s work and build on its impact,” the report said.
The plan suggested that the department will work to boost funding for specific race-oriented colleges, Fox News noted. “Community colleges, state regional universities, and HBCUs, TCUs, and MSIs including Predominantly Black Institutions (PBIs), HSIs, AANAPISIs, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian-Serving Institutions (ANNHs), and Native American-Serving Nontribal Institutions (NASNTIs) — some of the nation’s most inclusive colleges — disproportionately serve low-income students and students of color, but typically receive less education revenue per student than four-year flagship institutions,” it said.
In addition to the Department of Education, over 90 federal agencies, including all major cabinet departments, also published equity plans for 2022 on Thursday. Even amid spiraling inflation, multiple foreign-policy crises, and an increasingly politically divided union, the Biden administration has maintained that racial equity and gender inclusivity are its chief domestic concerns.