A new report claims that the Department of Justice spent more than $100 million on promoting Restorative Justice, DEI, and Social Emotional Learning initiatives in public school classrooms between 2021 and 2024.
A report published on Thursday by Parents Defending Education noted that the Biden-Harris administration’s Department of Justice awarded 102 grants totaling over $100,113,942 on “proposals promoting restorative justice practices, SEL, and DEI in the classroom from 2021 to 2024.” The Daily Wire reported that the grants impacted over 3 million students in 946 school districts across 36 states.
According to The Daily Wire, the Justice Department’s funding for “woke” initiatives was awarded under the STOP School Violence Program, which offers grants to school districts, nonprofit organizations, and local governments to help “increase school safety by implementing solutions that will improve school climate.”
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In Thursday’s report, Parents Defending Education explained that “improving school climate” typically means implementing “restorative practices and social emotional learning,” which disrupts the classroom by forcing offending students and victims to “repair harm” instead of “exclusionary discipline,” which involves the removal of disruptive students from the classroom.
Parents Defending Education’s report noted that some of the projects proposed under the funding awarded by the Justice Department involved “bringing in outside consultants to train staff and students on restorative practices.” Additionally, the report said, “Many projects had an explicit goal of improving school climate for ‘disproportionately impacted’ groups, singling out LGBTQ+ and BIPOC.”
Parents Defending Education President Nicki Neily told The Daily Wire on Thursday that the Justice Department’s STOP School Violence Program grants were “intended to be used to address and ameliorate school violence, which has been a major issue of concern to parents across the country over the past several years.”
“It’s appalling,” Neily said, “although not surprising, that DOJ bureaucrats would prioritize DEI initiatives over student safety. American families deserve better, and the sooner waste like this is eliminated, the better.”
