Dozens of School Districts Nationwide Separating Staff into Racial ‘Affinity Groups’ — Despite Trump Orders

School districts nationwide are giving staff the opportunity to participate in affinity groups based on race and other demographic characteristics, in apparent violation of several of President Trump’s recent executive orders intended to strip left-wing dogma around race and sex out of publicly funded institutions.

Over 100 districts in 26 states and Washington, D.C., have offered employees identity-based affinity groups to separate staff and provide “safe spaces” for “underrepresented” people to express themselves, according to Parents Defending Education, an activist group opposed to left-wing indoctrination in schools.

PDE’s investigation lists school districts in various states that have either allowed for affinity groups in the past or currently offer them to teachers and other staff. Most of the school districts with affinity groups are in blue states such as California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, and Vermont. Illinois has close to two dozen school districts with the identity-based groups, twice as many as any other state.

Affinity groups are school-sponsored organizations that intentionally separate people based on their immutable traits and sexual orientation. Activists, educators, outside consultants, or administrative staff with diversity, equity, and inclusion roles often facilitate the affinity clubs.

An example PDE’s investigation highlights is Denver Public Schools, which offers “Belong” groups for individuals from similar backgrounds to create community and build a more “inclusive” environment. The “Belong Group” offerings include associations for black, “latinx,” “managers of color,” “women of color,” and a special one devoted to “deconstructing privilege.”

The “deconstructing privilege” group seeks to “equip ourselves with the knowledge and skills to dismantle oppression” and “collectively explore and confront issues related to privilege,” PDE discovered.

Another example PDE focuses on is Portland, Maine Public Schools, where affinity groups are available for “BIPOC” and LGBT employees. On its webpage about affinity groups, Portland links to an article about why racial minorities “need spaces without white people.” The school district also extends “BIPOC” employees the opportunity to get free one-on-one counseling sessions with social workers and access to monthly “mutual support and healing spaces” put together by a “BIPOC” social worker.

In Hamilton County, Tennessee, the school district paid a consultant $50,000 to conduct an “educators of color” affinity group and other race-based training sessions, PDE discovered. The county is a red area that backed President Donald Trump in the 2024 election over former Vice President Kamala Harris.

The affinity groups nationwide appear to violate President Trump’s executive orders on rooting DEI programs out of schools, the federal government, and American institutions broadly speaking. The Trump administration’s Department of Education has already warned schools that they could lose federal funding if they do not comply with the White House’s directive to end racially discriminatory DEI initiatives.

PDE has already exposed a school district in Missouri that continues to openly promote DEI in a newsletter that recently attacked Trump’s DEI crackdown. The school district is unlikely to be alone in defying the Trump administration’s actions to get left-wing activism out of American education.

Trump has tasked Attorney General Pam Bondi with enforcing his DEI orders in corporate America and federally funded educational institutions. Soon after being confirmed, Bondi issued a memo earlier this month instructing the Justice Department’s civil rights division to steadfastly carry out Trump’s directive to fulfill America’s promise of equality under the law.

“Way too many people working in K-12 think that separating students and staff by race is not only fine but necessary as long as the right groups are included and excluded,” said PDE director of outreach Erika Sanzi.

“They have no understanding of federal law so in addition to fostering a racially divisive environment on the taxpayer dime, they are engaging in an illegal practice. Calling them affinity groups doesn’t change that obvious fact.”