Friday, February 20, 2026
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DOJ Moves to Intervene in Action Accusing LAUSD of Bias
Federal Civil Rights Division Joins Advocacy Group in Objecting to District’s Continued Use of 1960s-Era Program That Purportedly Favors Schools With Fewer White Students
By a MetNews Staff Writer
The U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has sought intervention in a lawsuit accusing Los Angeles officials of violating the Equal Protection Clause by adhering to a 1960s-era program that was designed to increase diversity across the city’s schools, alleging that continued participation in the scheme by the nation’s second-largest school district amounts to anti-white bias due to special funding offered to institutions with fewer “Anglo” students.
On Wednesday, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon filed the motion, attaching a complaint in intervention seeking declaratory and injunctive relief against Superintendent Alberto M. Carvalho of the Los Angeles Unified School District (“LAUSD”) and other affiliated parties as an exhibit. The Trump appointee seeks to intervene in a federal lawsuit initiated last month by the 1776 Project Foundation, a group that promotes patriotic education.
In its complaint, filed on Jan. 20 in the Central District of California, 1776 Project alleged that “the District engages in—and publicly touts—a program of overt discrimination against a new minority: White students” and that “[i]n today’s Los Angeles, over 600 public schools qualify” as predominately non-white institutions while “[f]ewer than 100 do not.” The group explained:
“Here is what the District does: First, individual students are racially classified, based on whether they qualify as ‘HBAO’—meaning ‘Hispanic, Black, Asian and Other non-Anglo’….Then, each public school is racially classified, based on whether more than 70 percent of its resident student population qualify as HBAO. Schools meeting this percentage criterion are labeled ‘PHBAO,’ meaning ‘Predominantly Hispanic, Black, Asian and Other non-Anglo.’ ”
Special Funding
According to 1776 Project, so-called PHBAO schools receive special funding to ensure that class sizes are smaller than at other institutions, where student-teacher ratios can be as high as 34.5 to one, and students enrolled at the predominantly non-white schools receive extra points on applications to prestigious magnet programs. The plaintiff asserted an Equal Protection claim under 42 U.S.C. §1983 as well as one under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) claimed that it should be granted intervention based on the interplay of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 24(a)(1), which provides that the court must permit anyone to intervene who “is given an unconditional right” to do so by a federal law, and 42 U.S.C. §2000h-2, which specifies:
“Whenever an action has been commenced in any court of the United States seeking relief from the denial of equal protection of the laws under the fourteenth amendment…on account of race…, the Attorney General for…the United States may intervene…upon timely application if the Attorney General certifies that the case is of general public importance. In such action the United States shall be entitled to the same relief as if it had instituted the action.”
Wednesday’s filing is accompanied by a certificate signed by Attorney General Pamela Bondi indicating that “the…case is of general public importance.”
System of Racial Spoils
In the attached complaint in intervention, Dhillon said:
“The United States brings this action to stop [LAUSD]…from operating a system of racial spoils. This system, known as the PHBAO Program, arose to counteract de facto (but not de jure) segregation…identified in the 1960s. Sixty years have passed, and the majority racial group in LAUSD has been Hispanic for decades. Nevertheless, LAUSD’s desegregation plan carries on with no end in sight….When [the district’s desirable magnet] schools become oversubscribed, the PHBAO Program allocates applicants by race. LAUSD also alters the operating rules and funding for its neighborhood schools based on the race of the people who live in the neighborhood.”
She continued:
“The era of race-based educational spoils systems has long since passed. ‘The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.’…This would be true even if LAUSD were still struggling to integrate Blacks and Whites. Today, Whites are such a small fraction of LAUSD’s student population that roughly 90% of its schools are given ‘special’ funding as predominantly non-White schools. This renders LAUSD’s efforts incoherent as well as unconstitutional.”
Both the DOJ and 1776 Project requested a permanent injunction prohibiting LAUSD from using racial preferences in operating, funding, advertising, or admitting students into school programs.
An LAUSD spokesperson yesterday said:
“Because this matter involves pending litigation, we are unable to comment on the specifics. However, Los Angeles Unified remains firmly committed to ensuring all students have meaningful access to services and enriching educational opportunities.”
The case is 1776 Project Foundation v. Carvalho, 2:26-cv-00548.
Attorney Michael DiNardo with the Los Angeles-based YK Law LLP is representing 1776 Project.
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