Los Angeles schools accused of quietly funding race-based programming for Black students only

An education watchdog is asking the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights to investigate the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) over allegations that the district has allocated tens of millions of dollars for services that only Black students can use.

Defending Education says LAUSD launched the “Black Student Achievement Plan” (BSAP) in 2021 to “address the long-standing disparities in educational outcomes between Black students and their non-Black peers.” The district also mentioned that the program is meant to help achieve “racial equity” and “[r]esources are allocated to different schools” according to “a race-based tiered system.”

The group says LAUSD has allocated $50 million for the program in the 2025-2026 school year, on top of $125 million previously spent on BSAP.

An example of the BSAP resource allocation in question is staffing support specifically dedicated to addressing the academic and social-emotional needs of Black students.

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On July 11, 2023, Defending Education filed a complaint with the Office of Civil Rights over the policy, saying it violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.

But that complaint was dismissed exactly a year later, after LAUSD represented that it had “substantially changed its criteria for resource allocation to a race-neutral standard and that BSAP’s resources would be available to all students regardless of race,” and the Office of Civil Rights agreed that any potential violation had been rectified.

However, Defending Education alleges that only months after the complaint was dismissed, LAUSD Board of Education members said the program had not changed.

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In a board meeting on Oct. 22, 2024, activists who opposed LAUSD’s changes to BSAP caused a ruckus, chanting slogans in opposition to the board’s announcement.

During those chants, according to Defending Education, now former board President Jackie Goldberg and LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho were caught on a hot mic agreeing that “nothing has changed.”

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“Do they not know that nothing has changed?” Goldberg asked Carvalho in reference to the protesters.

“Nothing has changed,” Carvalho agreed.

“How do they not know that?” Goldberg replied.

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Armed with this exchange, Defending Education has filed a new complaint.

“It’s concerning when a board of education member and the superintendent both promise in a public meeting that nothing has changed in the context of a race-based program that the district knows is in violation of federal law. It’s an admission that they have knowingly lied to the federal government about what is actually going on in the district as it relates to race-based programming,” said Erika Sanzi, senior communications director for Defending Education.

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“It is also worth noting that LAUSD’s school board added $50 million more to the BSAP program in its 2025-26 budget, bringing the total for the program to $175 million,” she said. “Not sure what it’s going to take for public school districts to accept the fact that it is against the law to include and exclude students in programs on the basis of race—hopefully reopening the civil rights investigation can help with that.”

But, the district insists that the situation has been rectified. 

“The concerns involving the District’s Black Student Achievement Plan were resolved with the U.S. Dept. of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR),” a spokesperson for the district said. “The Plan has been updated to ensure and make clear that services are open to all students, in compliance with state and federal law. Los Angeles Unified offers a wide range of programs and resources designed to support and inspire all students and families — regardless of race, ethnicity, or other protected groups in alignment with the District’s Non-Discrimination Policy.”