Indiana lawmakers drop ethnic studies as feds warn schools to comply or lose funding

Indiana will no longer require high schools to offer an ethnic studies course — a move state officials say is necessary to comply with federal guidance and President Donald Trump’s efforts to remove diversity, equity and inclusion from public education.

The course's repeal was included in House Bill 1002, a 120-page "deregulation" bill aimed at eliminating what GOP lawmakers described as duplicative or outdated language from Indiana education laws.

Sen. Jeff Raatz (R-Richmond), speaking on the Senate floor about the change, said the federal education department requested certain courses be removed from state requirements. 

“It comes from Washington, D.C., which we get over a billion dollars for in education,” he said.

The bill, which also makes changes to the secretary of education’s office, now heads to Gov. Mike Braun after passing both chambers of the General Assembly Thursday. 

Since 2018, every high school was mandated to offer a semester-long ethnic elective course annually. The course requirement coincided with academic standards that laid out course options on the subject. 

The standards outlined topics such as cultural self-awareness, and cultural histories and practices. For example, students could have investigated origins of various ethnic and racial groups, among other possibilities. 

Rep. Vernon Smith (D-Gary) said it’s “painful” to have the requirement ended. Smith was one of the lawmakers who fought to enact the legislation in 2018, he said. 

“We fought hard to get that into the curriculum for schools,” Smith said. 

Rep. Bob Behning (R-Indianapolis) said the state’s education department asked that language related to ethnic studies be struck from education law because it could potentially violate President Trump's DEI executive order. 

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights issued a "dear colleague" letter in February, warning educational institutions to stop considering race in decisions affecting students. 

Indiana’s Department of Education shared the guidance, telling schools they could lose federal funding if they don’t follow the directive.

Indiana's K-12 schools received $1.88 billion in federal funding, according to the Education Data Initiative. That's about $1,815 per student.

Courtney Crown, a spokeswoman for IDOE, wrote in an email that the department wants to protect that funding and is reviewing all “state standards, programs, and requirements, including courses currently required by state law, to ensure complete alignment with recent federal and state directives.”

In her email, Crown said the federal education department instructed all state educational agencies to reaffirm compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act — and warned that compliance is a "material condition for the continued receipt of federal financial assistance."

The Trump administration letter asserts that the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling on affirmative action in college admissions applies broadly to all aspects of education, allowing the department to consider any race-based policy unlawful.

But Smith and other lawmakers question whether a single course would truly jeopardize the state’s federal funding.

“It has nothing to do with the curriculum or instruction or anything like that,” Smith said. 

“They’re panicking and responding to the wishes of the president…”

On the Senate floor Thursday, Sen. Greg Taylor (D-Indianapolis), who authored the 2018 legislation creating the course requirement, said lawmakers are “better than this.”

“If the students wanted to take the course, and they had enough students sign up, they could take the course,” Taylor said. “It didn't require that they teach African American studies. It didn't require that they teach Latin American studies. It didn't require that they teach Native American studies.” 

The bill passed out of the Senate by a 27-21 vote. It now heads to Braun’s desk. 

Rachel Fradette is the WFYI Statehouse education reporter. Contact Rachel at rfradette@wfyi.org.