MILWAUKEE, WI – NOVEMBER 06: A woman leaves the Martin Luther King elementary school where citizens could cast their ballots for the U.S. presidential election on November 6, 2012 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Photo by Darren Hauck/Getty Images)
Milwaukee Public Schools under federal investigation, accused of considering race in disciplinary practices
Aug 19, 2026, 11:08 AM CT
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The U.S. Department of Education is investigating Milwaukee Public Schools, alleging the district considers race in disciplinary practices.
The department’s Office of Civil Rights announced the investigation in a press release on Aug. 18. In addition to MPS, a second school district in Fayetteville, Arkansas is also under investigation.
The department shared new guidelines it says will “promote safe and fair school discipline policies,” adding “discipline policies must treat students even-handedly and must neither favor nor disfavor any student based on their race.”
President Donald Trump signed an executive order in April “making it the policy of the United States to eliminate the use of disparate impact liability in all contexts.”
The department said the school district is in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 if they “evaluate the racial outcomes of their discipline policies” and “make decisions based on or because of those racial outcomes.”
The new guidance reverses the Office of Civil Rights’ longstanding position that disparate impacts in disciplinary policies could warrant investigations into racial discrimination.
MPS was the subject of an OCR investigation a decade ago over its disproportionate rates of suspensions and expulsions of Black students.
The department said it was launching an investigation into MPS after Milwaukee education leaders had “derided facially neutral school policies as reflecting systemic ‘whiteness.’” According to the press release, the leaders are accused of “encouraging school officials to consider race in disciplinary practices.”
According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, MPS drew national attention in 2024 over a memo that appeared to offer ways to reduce racial disparities in disciplinary practices, including by examining practices viewed through a “lens of Whiteness.” The memo was reportedly shared with a “campus bias tip line” operated by Young America’s Foundation, a conservative youth organization led by former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.
The department’s press release does not make clear whether the OCR investigation was prompted by a complaint. While many OCR investigations are launched in response to complaints, the office can also initiate its own compliance reviews, which may be based on information from the media or other sources.
Drake Bentley is an award-winning investigative journalist who has worked for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Wisconsin State Journal, Newsweek, Heavy and The Sporting News. He is a northside Milwaukee native, former political staffer and graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and the University of Nebraska.
