Major school district’s pledge with teachers’ union sparks racial discrimination complaint

FIRST ON FOX: One of Colorado’s largest school districts is facing a new federal civil rights complaint over a pledge it made with its teachers’ union to recruit, retain and advance educators of color.

Defending Education filed a federal civil rights complaint Monday, which was first obtained by Fox News Digital, with the U.S. Department of Education alleging that CCSD is discriminating on the basis of race in employment. CCSD is notably Colorado’s fourth-largest school district, and serves 52,000 students and more than 300,000 residents in the southeast Denver metropolitan area, according to the district’s website.

At the heart of the complaint is the district’s June 2023 “Educators of Color Declaration,” which commits Cherry Creek School District and its teacher’s union to recruiting, retaining and advancing educators of color, even as a separate provision in the same agreement calls for recruitment, hiring and advancement to be based on qualifications without regard to race.

“Cherry Creek Schools has written racial preferences directly into its teachers’ contract. The district’s ‘Educators of Color Declaration’ commits it to recruiting, retaining, and promoting teachers based on the color of their skin — which means other equally qualified teachers are passed over for the same reason,” Sarah Parshall Perry, Vice President and Senior Legal Fellow at Defending Education, told Fox News Digital.

“That’s not diversity; it’s discrimination, and it is precisely what Title VI and the Fourteenth Amendment forbid. The Supreme Court could not have been clearer in Students for Fair Admissions: the law is colorblind, and a school district cannot cure a race-based hiring policy with generic ‘equal opportunity’ language.”

Title VI prohibits race discrimination in federally funded programs under specified conditions, while Title VII more directly governs employment discrimination, leaving the legality of Cherry Creek’s teacher recruitment and advancement commitments dependent on how those policies are implemented.

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The “Educators of Color Declaration” also commits the district and its teachers’ union to intentionally recruiting highly qualified educators of color while making a concerted effort to retain those already employed by the district and help them advance into leadership positions, according to the district’s negotiated agreement.

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Additionally, the policy says that “to fulfill these goals, all policies in this agreement shall reflect Cherry Creek School District core values by grounding the work of negotiations in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI),” according to the school district’s 2026-2027 Negotiated Agreement.

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“Cherry Creek is under no obligation to accept federal funding, but because it has, it cannot run a racial balancing scheme for its own workforce and still adhere to federal law,” Perry continued. “We are asking the Office for Civil Rights to open an investigation and put an end to it.”

Defending Education’s latest complaint comes after the Department of Education announced a separate investigation on June 8, into allegations that Cherry Creek School District sponsored racially discriminatory programs involving students, teachers and parents.

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“These allegations of racially discriminatory conduct in this District seem to permeate almost every aspect of the school community, affecting students, teachers, and parents alike,” Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey said in a statement at the time. “Federal law prohibits racial discrimination, which means that race cannot be a factor in how the school educates its students or trains its teachers.”

The Trump administration has been cracking down on DEI efforts across the nation’s education system, including proposing new regulations in September that would revoke the tax-exempt status of private schools and colleges that consider race in admissions, scholarships or other school-administered programs.

CCSD did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment on Monday. 

When reached for comment, a Department of Education spokesperson told Fox News Digital that “the Department does not confirm complaints.”