EXCLUSIVE: DOJ Spent Over $100 Million Pushing DEI, Restorative Justice In Classrooms, Report Finds

The Department of Justice spent over $100 million on proposals promoting woke content in classrooms between 2021 and 2024, according to a new report first obtained by The Daily Wire.

An investigation conducted by Parents Defending Education (PDE) found that the Biden DOJ awarded over $100,113,942 through 102 grants, throughout 36 states, impacting 946 school districts and upwards of 3 million K-12 students. Those funds were spent on proposals promoting restorative justice practices, social and emotional learning practices, and diversity, equity, and inclusion practices in the classroom over the past four years, The Daily Wire has learned.

The funds were awarded through the Justice Department’s STOP School Violence Program, which provides grant money to school districts, nonprofits, and city and state governments through projects that “increase school safety by implementing solutions that will improve school climate.”

That climate phrasing, according to PDE, typically means replacing exclusionary discipline (removing the disrupter from the classroom) with restorative practices (bringing the offender and victim together to discuss what happened and “repair harm”) or social and emotional learning (supposedly to increase self-awareness, empathy, and goal setting, often laced with LGBTQ ideology).

“DOJ STOP grants were intended to be used to address and ameliorate school violence, which has been a major issue of concern to parents across the country over the past several years,” PDE president Nicki Neily told The Daily Wire on Thursday.

“It’s appalling,” she added, “although not surprising, that DOJ bureaucrats would prioritize DEI initiatives over student safety. American families deserve better, and the sooner waste like this is eliminated, the better.”

Some of these projects proposed bringing in consultants from groups like “Courageous Conversations About Race” or “International Institute for Restorative Practices” who would train students and staff on these woke practices, the report found.

It also notes that many of the projects funded by the DOJ explicitly named goals of focusing on “disproportionately impacted” groups, such as those who identify as LGBTQ and BIPOC (an acronym for black, indigenous, and people of color).

Michael A. McCoy/For The Washington Post via Getty Images

The PDE report details how the Justice Department gave the Minnesota Department of Education almost $2 million to “create safe learning environments where practices of anti-racism and anti-oppression are embedded.” The Ohio-based Bowling Green State University received almost $2 million to develop a mental health curriculum for students in rural or impoverished districts involving “mindfulness meditation, yoga, and knitting circles.”

In Pennsylvania, the DOJ awarded $1,785,773 to a Penn State project focused on decreasing cyberbullying in K-12 schools to “provide an opportunity to meaningfully advance equity in violence prevention for communities historically underserved, marginalized, adversely affected by inequality, and disproportionately impacted by crime, violence, and victimization (People of Color (POC), women, people with disabilities, and LGBTQIA+ community).”

Also in Pennsylvania, according to the report, the DOJ granted $1,688,668 to a collaborative program between organizations including Temple University and The School District of Philadelphia, that looked to decrease violence by teaching youth about “community policing, trauma informed conflict emphasizing racial/historical and intergenerational trauma, impacts of social media on conflict and conflict escalation and management, anti-bias education, restorative practices.”

In California, the DOJ granted $1 million to the organization Reach Out West End with a goal of improving school safety in the Jurupa Valley Unified School District by focusing “on LGBTQIA+ issues aligned with SB 857, mental/behavioral health, substance use prevention and/or conflict mediation.”

In New Jersey, the DOJ awarded Ocean County $1 million to reduce school violence in a proposal that equates “teasing” to “oppression, and all forms of violence.”

And in Wisconsin, the DOJ awarded almost $1 million to Milwaukee Public Schools to “promote racial equity” by working with “Courageous Conversations about Race, Crisis Prevention Institute, Your Move MKE, Marquette University Peace Works, and SKY Schools.”

The news comes after President-elect Donald Trump, who focused a large part of his campaign on putting a stop to gender ideology and woke practices in the classroom, won the 2024 presidential election. The Daily Wire previously reported how Trump’s ads focusing on Democratic gender extremism were particularly effective. Trump will take office in late January.