A new federal civil rights complaint targets one of Colorado's largest school districts over a commitment it made with its teachers' union to recruit, retain and advance educators of color. The complaint was obtained first by Fox News Digital.
Defending Education filed the complaint Monday with the U.S. Department of Education. It alleges that Cherry Creek School District, known as CCSD, discriminates on the basis of race in employment. According to the district's website, CCSD is the fourth-largest district in Colorado, serving 52,000 students and more than 300,000 residents in the southeast Denver metropolitan area.
The complaint centers on the district's June 2023 "Educators of Color Declaration." The document commits the district and its teachers' union to recruiting, retaining and advancing educators of color. A separate provision in the same agreement states that recruitment, hiring and advancement should be based on qualifications without regard to race.
According to the district's negotiated agreement, the declaration also calls for intentional recruitment of highly qualified educators of color, a concerted effort to keep those already employed by the district, and help for them to move into leadership roles. The district's 2026-2027 Negotiated Agreement adds that, to meet these goals, all policies in the agreement should reflect core values by grounding negotiations in diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Sarah Parshall Perry, Vice President and Senior Legal Fellow at Defending Education, said the district "has written racial preferences directly into its teachers' contract." She argued that other equally qualified teachers are passed over as a result. "That's not diversity; it's discrimination, and it is precisely what Title VI and the Fourteenth Amendment forbid," she told Fox News Digital, adding that a district cannot fix a race-based hiring policy with generic equal opportunity language.
Title VI bars race discrimination in federally funded programs under specified conditions, while Title VII more directly governs employment discrimination. The legality of the district's commitments therefore depends on how the policies are carried out.
Perry said the district is not required to accept federal funding, but having done so, it cannot run what she called a racial balancing scheme for its workforce. Defending Education is asking the department's Office for Civil Rights to open an investigation.
The filing follows a separate investigation announced by the Department of Education on June 8, into allegations that the district sponsored racially discriminatory programs involving students, teachers and parents. Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey said at the time that the allegations "seem to permeate almost every aspect of the school community." She added that race cannot be a factor in how a school educates students or trains its teachers.
The Trump administration has been cracking down on DEI efforts across the education system. In September, it proposed regulations that would revoke the tax-exempt status of private schools and colleges that consider race in admissions, scholarships or other school-administered programs.
CCSD did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday. A Department of Education spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the department does not confirm complaints.
