Group targeting ‘woke culture’ sues Fresno Unified over programs helping Black students
A group targeting “woke culture” and diversity, equity and inclusion programs in public education is suing Fresno Unified over its programs that aim to close its yawning African American student achievement gap.
The lawsuit by the Californians for Equal Rights Foundation targets the district’s Office of African American Academic Acceleration (A4) — an initiative supporting African American students and other demographic groups who experience disproportionately high suspension rates and low graduation rates compared to their peers. In recent years, the A4 initiative has developed 13 programs, such as a summer reading program, and operated on a $12 million budget in fiscal 2024, according to the district.
In the 2023-24 school year, the district says A4 programs served 7,950 students of all racial and ethnic backgrounds, including 1,212 single-race African American and Black students, representing 23% of the 5,200 African American students enrolled in Fresno Unified.
However, parents from the CFER, a nonprofit group that fights for equal treatment under the law, said the A4 programs were discriminatory in design, execution, and promotion to exclude non-Black students.
“All of the programs are described as being for African American students. Nowhere in the descriptions state that the programs are open to all,” said Wilson Freeman, an attorney with Pacific Legal Foundation representing CFER in the lawsuit. “From speaking to parents, it’s been indicated to us that the school district directly advertises these programs only to African American students, and there have been students who have attended this program and have been redirected to other programs on the basis of their race.”
Fresno Unified is the third-largest school district in the state, and about 7.6% of its more than 68,000 students are African American. Like other large, urban districts across the state, Fresno Unified has struggled, for decades, to raise academic achievement among its Black students.
In the 2023-24 school year, 21.24% and 13.21% of African American students met the state’s English language arts and math proficiency standards, respectively, compared to 34.72% and 25.14% for all students.
The lawsuit states that three CFER parent members, whose children are not African-American and attend Fresno Unified schools, said their children would likely be interested in the program but were never informed of the opportunity. They said the programs discriminated against their children because of their race.
The situation was brought to the group’s attention because it has been engaged in sweeping racial discrimination in public schools, said Freeman. With the law changes over the last few years and hearing the frustration from parents, the organization believes it’s time to sue school districts for discrimination on the basis of race, he said.
The lawsuit comes weeks after President Donald Trump’s administration directed educational institutions terminate race-based programs or risk loss of federal funding. Freeman said the lawsuit is not directly related to the federal directive.
Fresno Unified spokesperson Nikki Henry said the school district does not comment on pending litigation.
The school district is trying to figure out the impact of a directive from the Trump administration to get rid of diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Henry told The Bee Wednesday evening that the district had no planned changes to its diversity, equity, and inclusion department and programs, including the A4 programs.
This story was originally published February 27, 2025 at 3:12 PM.
