The Great Tug-o’-War Over DEI

Clark County Schools at Odds with Washington

There’s a ruckus in Clark County, and it’s got the flavor of one of those old-timey soap operas, only with fewer swoons and more memos.

With the thunder of an old Marine Corps D.I. laying down the law, the Trump administration has told the Clark County School District that if it don’t toss its diversity and equity programs into the nearest dustbin, it might just lose a goodly pile of federal money.

It ain’t some light threat passed over supper. It is in line with a formal executive order President Donald J. Trump penned back in February, wherein he declared that such Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (or DEI, abbreviated to save breath and ink) programs have no rightful business in public schools. The Department of Education backed that up with a memo so stiff it could stand up on its own, warning that Title 1 funds will get yanked from any district that won’t toe the line.

It’s a particularly sore subject for Clark County, where about seven in every ten schools are Title 1—that is, they depend on those funds like a desert dog depends on a water dish. The schools serve low-income students, and the money’s meant to level the field a bit, but it seems the same money might get held back owing to the very existence of a district department tasked with minding diversity and equity.

Records, wrangled free, show that the district’s Equity and Diversity Department’s been chugging along at a cost of about two million dollars a year, give or take a few buffalo nickels. Nine folks are officially in that department, with another fourteen in the equity and diversity pot.

Five make six-figure salaries while seeing their pay climb faster than a coyote chasing a rabbit. One such fella, Andrew O’Reilly, started at $99,000 in 2022 and draws $122,168. Assistant Superintendent Samuel Scavella’s pay jumped from $132,552 to $150,812. And wouldn’t you know, they even added two new folks to the department just this February—one pulling in a handsome $114,432.

As to what CCSD and the Nevada Department of Education plan to do about the President’s order? Well, they’re keeping mum. No answer came from their end of the street when asked whether they’d comply or stand their ground.

So here we are, in a good old-fashioned standoff—Washington wagging its finger, the school district counting its beans, and parents of every opinion peering on from the sidelines, wondering which way the winds blow. And if history’s any guide, there’s sure to be more fireworks before this tale’s told in full.