Here we go again! Conservative group claims Los Angeles school system desegregation policies discriminate against white students

The conservative group 1776 Project Foundation is back, and this time it’s suing the Los Angeles Unified School District over claims that its desegregation policies – dates back decades– promotes discrimination against white students, USA today reports.

The Jan. 20 lawsuit argues that students at “non-PHBAO” — meaning predominantly Hispanic, Black, Asian or “other non-Anglo” schools receive “inferior treatment and calculated disadvantages.” The group, whose corresponding PAC was behind the national campaign that sought to oust school board members they believed favored racial and social justice classes, claims that LAUSD programs are “racially discriminatory in their purpose and effect.”

It also claims that Middle Eastern students are classified as white by the school district and “should be part of the disfavored group, just like others who are on the wrong side of the district’s bizarre racial and ethnic line drawing.”

While the Los Angeles School District continues to exist one of the most segregated in the countryaccording to the New York TimesGroup founder and conservative political consultant Ryan James Girdusky labeled the policy “the most egregious example of racial discrimination by a major school district in this country.”

The policy in question dates back to the 1970s, when a court order prompted the district to desegregate in an effort to improve conditions for students of color with smaller class sizes, among other benefits for students at schools where enrollment was primarily PHBAO. Schools that fall under the acronym category are the result of their local student population. If a school is located in an area that is more than 70% Hispanic, Black, Asian, or other, it is designated as PHBAO.

The policy was created as a way to address the “harms of segregation,” such as low academic achievement and low self-esteem, lack of access to post-secondary education, interracial hostility and intolerance, and overcrowded conditions. But now that potential is in jeopardy.

The lawsuit comes as the Trump administration’s war on diversity, equality and inclusion continues.

While agencies like the Department of Defense have scrubbed websites and archives containing remnants of black history and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) presides over hypes for white men to file workplace discrimination claims, Justin Driver, an affirmative action expert and professor at Yale Law School, says America is living in “an era of racial revanchism” following the Supreme Court’s controversial 2023 ruling to overturn affirmative action.

“Los Angeles Unified remains strongly committed to ensuring all students have meaningful access to services and enriching educational opportunities,” a district spokesperson said. But Aiden Buzzetti, president of the 1776 Project, said the court order “is no longer relevant to today, and is currently causing contemporary harm.”

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