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Students of every race and ethnicity must be valued and protected at school. It is essential to students’ well-being that educators and administrators acknowledge and actively confront racial bias, bullying, and harassment. 

Racism at school can take many forms, including policies that perpetuate discrimination or target students of color and practices that deny equal access to education. Students’ intersectional identities (along lines of race, gender, sexuality, and disability) can shape how students experience discrimination. Thus, reported incidents of racism don’t capture the range of injustices that students of color face in our schools. 

Education Law Center believes that all schools must follow their legal obligation to address racism and to intentionally foster affirming, antiracist school environments. 

Key ELC Fact Sheets and Resources 

• The Right to Be Free From Racism at School
• Promising Practices to Build Antiracist and Affirming Schools 
• How to File a Complaint to the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission 

ELC uses multiple strategies to support antiracist, affirming schools. We work with local communities and school districts in Pennsylvania to counter hostile school environments, rewrite discriminatory dress codes, develop inclusive curriculum, end exclusionary discipline, and eliminate fines and fees. In 2025, a necessary new focus of ours has been to respond to attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.

Here are a few examples of our work:

Black Girls Education Justice Initiative

In ELC’s 2023 report, We Need Supportive Spaces That Celebrate Us: Black Girls Speak Out About Public Schools, we drew upon Black girls’ expertise about their school experiences to write about the pervasive inequities and anti-Black racism and sexism they encounter, and we presented their recommendations for change.

Learn more about how ELC is following up on the report through our Black Girls Education Justice Initiative. We believe that schools must change to become supportive spaces for Black girls, and we have seen that they can change. In the School District of Philadelphia, for example, our recommendations were incorporated into district policies on dress and grooming.

Challenging Exclusionary Discipline

For decades, scholars, advocates, and families have unequivocally expressed that harsh, often discriminatory, and sometimes permanent exclusionary school discipline, such as suspension or expulsion, results in long-term negative outcomes for young people. Overwhelmingly, students impacted by discriminatory discipline practices are Black, Brown, LGBTQ+, and/or are students with disabilities. Black girls are disproportionately excluded from school due to sexual and racial stigma and bias. Now we see a federal push to totally disregard these racial disparities in school discipline.

ELC recognizes the harmful consequences of school suspensions, expulsions, disciplinary transfers, and pushouts. It is crucial that families, advocates, and students know their rights and know how best to advocate against harsh or unwarranted discipline. ELC supports students and families through our Helpline and provides resources like these:

• Suspensions in Pennsylvania
• Expulsions in Pennsylvania
• Suspension & Expulsion Toolkit
• Alternative Education for Disruptive Youth (AEDY).

Responding to Attacks on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI)

White House executive orders issued in early 2025 represent an alarming frontal assault on all commitments to educational equity for Black and Brown students. ELC is fighting back ­­— stepping up to respond to a series of anti-DEIexecutive orders and the accompanying threats to cut federal funding to school districts.

Our nation’s civil rights laws have not changed. Schools have legal obligations to provide a safe, affirming environment and equitable opportunities for all our students. The threats in the recent executive orders are unlawful, as we explained in our letter to all Pennsylvania school districts about attacks on DEI, written with ACLU-PA. In April 2025, we followed up with a joint webinar, The Truth About Executive Orders and Lawful DEI in Pennsylvania Schools and Colleges. You can find a recording and additional resources here.