The Department of Justice has allocated more than $100 million in grants over the past four years to support education programs focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), restorative justice, and social emotional learning (SEL), according to a new report from Parents Defending Education.
The PDE, a conservative advocacy group aiming to “reclaim our schools from activists imposing harmful agendas,” revealed that between 2021 and 2024, the DOJ distributed $100,113,942 across over 900 school districts in 36 states. The findings detailed the allocation of these funds:
- $45,207,178 for projects mentioning restorative practices or SEL.
- $32,084,529 for initiatives discussing DEI or aimed at improving outcomes for specific demographic groups.
- $19,881,347 for consultant certifications promoting concepts such as critical race theory, critical gender theory, and queer theory.
- $10,296,100 for hiring new administrators, including roles like “restorative justice facilitators.”
Among the highlighted grants were nearly $2 million awarded to the Minnesota Department of Education to foster “safe learning environments where practices of anti-racism and anti-oppression are embedded,” and nearly $1 million to New Jersey’s Ocean County to reduce violence, equating behaviors like “teasing” with “oppression and all forms of violence.”
PDE emphasized that the $100 million figure is based on available data and likely underestimates the actual total. “Some counties with multiple grants were counted only once,” the organization clarified.
Last month, PDE released a similar report detailing that the Department of Education had spent over $1 billion on grants advancing DEI in hiring, programming, and mental health training in schools since 2021. That report found $489,883,797 allocated to race-based hiring, $343,337,286 for general DEI programming, and $169,301,221 for DEI-focused mental health training, totaling $1,002,522,304.
