An education watchdog agency is urging the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights to look into the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). This request comes after allegations that LAUSD allocated millions of dollars to services that are exclusively available for Black students.
The advocacy group claims that LAUSD initiated the Black Student Achievement Plan (BSAP) in 2021 to tackle ongoing disparities in educational outcomes between Black students and their non-Black peers. The district asserts that the program aims to foster “racial equity.” Resources are purportedly distributed among schools using a “race-based tiered system.”
For the upcoming 2025-2026 school year, LAUSD has earmarked $50 million for this program, adding to the previously spent $125 million since the program’s inception.
Concerns around BSAP include the provision of staffing aimed specifically at meeting the academic and social-emotional needs of Black students.
On July 11, 2023, the group Defending Education lodged a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights, suggesting that the policy contravenes Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. However, this complaint was dismissed one year later after LAUSD reportedly revised its resource allocation criteria to be race-neutral, with the Office agreeing that any potential violations had been addressed.
Nonetheless, Defending Education contends that months after the dismissal, LAUSD board members indicated that the program had not undergone any significant changes.
During a Board Directors meeting on October 22, 2024, activists opposing changes to the BSAP created a scene, chanting against the school board’s decisions. In a moment caught on live microphones, Board President Jackie Goldberg and LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho acknowledged that “nothing has changed,” which was documented by Defending Education.
“Don’t they know that nothing has changed?” Goldberg commented to Carvalho regarding the protesters, to which Carvalho concurred.
This exchange has prompted Defending Education to file a new complaint. They expressed concern over the apparent admission from school officials that they had misled the federal government regarding the district’s race-based programs. Erica Sange, the senior communications director for Education Defense, stated that it is troubling for a board member and a superintendent to acknowledge this publicly.
Sange also noted that the LAUSD Board of Education increased the BSAP budget by an additional $50 million for 2025-26, totaling $175 million. She emphasized the need for public school districts to understand that it is illegal to include or exclude students based on race, hoping that the reopening of the civil rights investigation could facilitate that understanding.
As of now, LAUSD has not responded to requests for comments.
