The program labels roughly 90 percent of LAUSD schools as PHBAO, then punishes schools with higher percentages of White students by giving them larger class sizes, fewer resources, and lower priority for magnet programs
The Trump Justice Department has moved decisively to dismantle one of California’s most blatant examples of institutionalized racial discrimination in the second-largest school district in the country: the Los Angeles Unified School District’s PHBAO program.
In a motion to intervene in federal court (see below), the DOJ is backing the 1776 Project Foundation’s lawsuit against LAUSD’s six-decade-old PHBAO (Predominantly Hispanic, Black, Asian, and Other Non-Anglo) scheme. The program labels roughly 90 percent of LAUSD schools as “PHBAO” based solely on racial demographics — then punishes schools with higher percentages of White students by giving them larger class sizes, fewer resources, and lower priority for magnet programs.
Simply put, if your child attends a school with “too many” White students, they get punished. This is not desegregation. It is government-sanctioned reverse discrimination.
Attorney General Pam Bondi made the administration’s position crystal clear: “Treating Americans equally is not a suggestion — it is a core constitutional guarantee that educational institutions must follow. This Department of Justice will never stop fighting to make that guarantee a reality, including for public-school students in Los Angeles.”
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First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, the Trump-appointed prosecutor leading the charge in the Central District of California, stated the program is unconstitutional. “Now in its sixth decade, LAUSD’s desegregation program has outlived its usefulness to the point of being unconstitutional. School districts must treat their students equally and no longer discriminate on the basis of race,” Essayli stated.
The PHBAO program traces its roots to 1970s court orders following a 1970 Los Angeles Superior Court ruling that found LAUSD operated segregated schools. Class-size reduction tied to racial formulas began in 1978, with the specific PHBAO designation and magnet-point preferences formalized in the late 1970s and early 1980s. What began as a response to historical segregation has morphed into a permanent racial-caste system that now penalizes the district’s tiny White student population.
Today, White (non-Hispanic) students make up just 10% of LAUSD’s enrollment in a district that is approximately 73% Hispanic, 7% Black, and 4-5% Asian. Yet under PHBAO rules, schools with “too many” White students are treated as disadvantaged — receiving fewer teachers per student and reduced access to coveted programs.
This is the same Marxist ideology that has wrecked California’s public schools: prioritizing race over merit, equity over excellence, and social justice over color-blind justice. While LAUSD bleeds students and money — with attendance plummeting and families fleeing failing schools — bureaucrats continue playing racial bean-counting games with taxpayer dollars.
LAUSD parents have watched their children suffer in failing schools for years while bureaucrats played racial favorites. White families in “Anglo” schools got fewer teachers, larger classes, and slammed doors on opportunity — all because their skin color didn’t check the right demographic box.
The Trump DOJ’s intervention is a long-overdue rejection of this Marxist madness. It reaffirms that the Constitution demands color-blind justice — not racial punishment for White children whose only crime is their skin color in a majority-minority district.
