Federal court rulings reassure board members

The Haldane school board plans to reinstate the district's Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policy at its Tuesday (May 6) meeting, two weeks after suspending the standards in a bid to safeguard $450,000 in federal funding threatened by the Trump administration's opposition to DEI programs.

The reversal came after federal judges in Maryland, New Hampshire and Washington, D.C., on April 24 temporarily blocked the administration from cutting funding to schools with what the White House characterizes as "illegal" practices.

Those rulings occurred the same day the administration chose as the deadline for local school districts to certify they had eliminated DEI policies and operated in compliance with Title VI the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits racial discrimination in federally funded programs. The Haldane board also passed a resolution asserting the latter.

A day later, New York and 18 other states filed a federal lawsuit challenging the certification requirement. They called the directive "unprecedented and unlawful," and said DEI initiatives actually support civil rights law.

Haldane voted unanimously on April 22 to suspend its DEI policy pending "clarification of the conflict between the respective positions of the state and federal governments regarding Title VI and DEI," according to the resolution.

On Wednesday (April 30), the district issued a statement that said its legal counsel had advised that the federal rulings could be interpreted to mean "there is no longer an imminent risk of losing funds." The statement said the board will reinstate the DEI policy "without modification and will continue to address all policy revisions through its standard review process."

Carl Albano, the interim superintendent, said the five-member board made the decision after meeting in a closed session on Tuesday with Michael Lambert, its attorney from Shaw, Perelson, May & Lambert, which represents and advises many area districts.

Haldane Statement

On April 29, 2025, the Haldane Board of Education met in executive session with legal counsel from Shaw, Perelson, May & Lambert. Counsel advised that, based on the April 24, 2025, rulings by three federal court judges temporarily blocking the U.S. Department of Education from implementing and enforcing its Feb. 14, 2025, Dear Colleague Letter, the Feb. 28, 2025, Frequently Asked Questions and the April 3, 2025, certification requirement, there is no longer an imminent risk of losing Title funds related to the Title VI certification requirement. As a result, the Board intends to reinstate its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policy at its May 6, 2025, meeting without modification and will continue to address all policy revisions through its standard review process.

Read Haldane letter to community.

"The board was surprised by the level of acrimony" from the community in response to its vote, said Peggy Clements, its president. "Many of us wish we had said more during and after the [April 22] meeting to explain that the suspension was temporary, that this was a difficult decision for us given our commitment to the aims of the policy, that we believed federal funding was truly at risk if we didn't act by April 24, and that we were making the decision because we believed that protecting the funds was in the best interests of students."

Clement said that she and another board member will be at a Haldane PTA meeting scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on Monday (May 5) at the Butterfield Library in Cold Spring to answer questions about the DEI policy.

Albano said that district residents told him they had hoped the board would take a more defiant stance, as Harvard University did when it refused changes demanded by the administration despite a threat to end $2.2 billion in federal grants and contracts. "We don't have a $53 billion endowment like Harvard," said Albano.

The Haldane district has an annual budget of about $30 million. The $450,000 in feder...