The Minnesota Department of Human Rights (MDHR) is celebrating recent employment discrimination settlements, but the reality is that the MDHR is itself a major source of discrimination in our K-12 schools.
The MDHR insists that school districts manage discipline by racial quotas. This means that if Black or Native American students are a higher percentage of discipline cases than they represent in the student population, school districts are pressured to reduce discipline for those groups.
The practical effect is simple: fewer Black and Native American students are disciplined than they should be, while White, Asian, and Hispanic students are disciplined more frequently for the exact same conduct. This is fundamentally wrong, unfair, and a direct violation of the principle of equal justice under law. Discipline should always be imposed equally based on the offense, not manipulated by racial quotas. The MDHR has actively bragged about this policy and threatened school districts with discrimination charges if they do not comply.
This systemic discrimination, alongside the MDHR’s role in forcing schools to compromise the integrity of girls’ sports, shows that this agency is a source of discrimination itself.
Have You Experienced Unfair Discipline?
If you have experienced unfair discipline based on race or ethnicity in a Minnesota K-12 school and are willing to consider fighting back, please contact the UMLC confidentially at [email protected].
Read Doug’s original analysis on this topic in the Minnesota Star Tribune’s “Readers Write.”
