New federal guidance tells schools not to use race or national origin to shape discipline policies as the Education Department changes how it addresses racial disparities.
The U.S. Department of Education has issued new guidance telling federally funded schools that they cannot use students’ race, color or national origin when administering discipline, while warning schools against changing disciplinary policies specifically to reduce racial disparities.
The guidance, issued Tuesday, Aug. 18, comes as the Trump administration continues to roll back federal civil-rights policies that allowed officials to examine whether seemingly neutral school policies produced disproportionate effects on racial or ethnic groups.
The policy applies to Latino students as well as Black, Asian, Native American and other students, because Title VI of the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination based on race, color or national origin in federally funded education programs. Title VI explicitly covers discipline.
The Education Department’s guidance says schools must treat students equally in discipline and describes efforts to change disciplinary policies because of racial disparities as “racial balancing.” The department says schools may use race-related data to identify evidence of intentional discrimination, but may not make disciplinary decisions based on a student’s race or on a disciplinary policy that produces different outcomes among racial groups.
What the data show about Latino students
Nationally, the available federal data do not show Latino students experiencing the same level of disciplinary disparity as Black students.
But federal civil-rights investigations have documented cases in which Latino students faced significant discipline disparities.
A 2023 joint report by the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights and the Justice Department examined investigations involving 14 school districts in 10 states. The cases covered allegations involving Black, Latino and Native American students, including suspensions, expulsions, school-based arrests, referrals to law enforcement and other disciplinary measures.
In one federal investigation, officials found that Latino students in a school district were:
1.49 times more likely than White students to be referred for discipline;
2.15 times more likely to receive an in-school suspension;
1.5 times more likely to receive an out-of-school suspension.
The investigation also found statistically significant disparities involving Latino students in disciplinary referrals, in-school suspensions, out-of-school suspensions and disciplinary transfers.
Federal officials have previously emphasized that discipline disparities can arise from decisions involving subjective offenses, such as defiance or disruption, rather than only from serious violations.
Milwaukee case brings Latino students into the current debate
The new policy is already being tested in Milwaukee Public Schools, one of two districts announced Tuesday as the subject of a federal investigation over discipline practices involving race. The other district is in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
Milwaukee is particularly relevant to Latino students because the district has historically identified Black and Latino boys as groups experiencing high suspension rates. A district initiative focused on Black and Latino male achievement was developed in part as a response to those disparities.
The federal investigation comes after the Education Department said schools cannot consider race when deciding disciplinary consequences. The department’s position is that students must receive the same treatment regardless of race and that schools cannot use racial outcomes as a reason to alter disciplinary policies.
A broader change in federal civil-rights enforcement
The discipline guidance follows a July decision by the Education Department to eliminate its regulatory framework for disparate-impact enforcement under Title VI.
Under the previous approach, federal officials could investigate whether a facially neutral policy produced an unjustified discriminatory effect based on race, color or national origin. The department said the previous framework encouraged schools to engage in “racial balancing” and went beyond what Title VI permits.
The change matters for Latino students because national origin is expressly protected under Title VI. Federal protections cover discrimination based on factors including a student’s perceived national origin, accent, name and limited English proficiency.
The Education Department’s current position does not eliminate Title VI protection for Latino students. Rather, it changes the department’s approach to determining when differences in outcomes constitute evidence of unlawful discrimination.
For Latino families, the central question is therefore not whether federal civil-rights protections still apply. They do. The question is how schools and federal investigators will respond when discipline data show that Latino students receive different disciplinary outcomes from other students.
The latest nationwide Civil Rights Data Collection does not provide a 2026 snapshot; the most recently available national data cited in the federal discipline reports come from the 2020–21 school year. As a result, current district-level data will be important in determining how the new federal policy affects Latino students in practice.
The immediate change is clear: schools receiving federal funds are being told not to use race or national origin to determine disciplinary consequences or to redesign discipline policies specifically to produce more racially equal outcomes. For Latino students, the impact will depend in part on how schools distinguish between treating students equally and investigating why discipline outcomes differ among racial and ethnic groups.
