{"id":80185,"date":"2025-12-03T19:37:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T19:37:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/80185\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T19:37:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T19:37:07","slug":"group-appeals-discrimination-lawsuit-dismissed-against-fresno-unified","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/80185\/","title":{"rendered":"Group appeals discrimination lawsuit dismissed against Fresno Unified"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Credit: Lasherica Thornton\/ EdSource<\/p>\n

The Californians for Equal Rights Foundation, a nonprofit targeting diversity, equity and inclusion programs in public education, is appealing the dismissal of its discrimination lawsuit against the Fresno Unified School District to the U.S. Court of Appeals.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The group\u2019s February complaint accused the district\u2019s Black student support initiative, formerly the African American Academic Acceleration department, or A4, of excluding non-Black students.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The appeal attempts to \u201creopen the courthouse doors and confirm that we have standing so we can end Fresno\u2019s racially segregated programs,\u201d Wilson Freeman, an attorney for the foundation, said in a statement to EdSource.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The group alleged in its original complaint that the district violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the California Constitution, claiming that Fresno Unified\u2019s A4 programs \u201care designed, marketed, and promoted as only available to black students\u201d and that even if parents \u201chad learned about the A4 programs, they and their children are not made to feel welcome because of their race.\u201d<\/p>\n

A federal judge in August dismissed the lawsuit<\/a>, stating that the group failed to establish key legal standards, including that the foundation\u2019s allegations were generalized and speculative, not specific.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe underlying legal issues remain,\u201d said Mark Harris, an attorney for Fresno Unified.\u00a0<\/p>\n

No non-Black student was prevented from accessing A4 programs due to race or ethnicity, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Still, Fresno Unified has renamed and restructured the department <\/a>to Advancing Academic Acceleration & Achievement to prevent the Trump administration\u2019s threats to cut funds to schools with race-based programs, as well as to better promote initiatives to the marginalized student groups that the department has served for years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The district created A4<\/a> in 2017 to specifically address Black student underachievement in academics, but has served students from all marginalized racial and ethnic groups. A4 provides academic support programs for elementary students and offers enrichment camps, peer groups and academic and social-emotional support programs for middle and high school students.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Along with the name change, A4 will combine middle and high school support programs that were targeted for African American students into one narrowly focused program.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cRegardless of what we\u2019re named, we still are going to be committed to providing supports for marginalized students,\u201d A4 Executive Director Lisa Mitchell previously told EdSource.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What\u2019s next?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Despite a name change, the foundation is appealing the lawsuit dismissal.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Students for Fair Admissions, the Supreme Court made clear that government officials cannot discriminate against children on the basis of their race in the name of equity or diversity, yet Fresno Unified is doing exactly that,\u201d said Freeman, the attorney for the foundation. \u201cAll children deserve to be treated equally without regard for their immutable characteristics.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Students for Fair Admissions case was a 2023 landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that ruled policies considering race in admissions<\/a> at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina were unlawful.<\/p>\n

The Supreme Court case was not referenced in the original complaint but was included in a response about the lawsuit\u2019s dismissal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Moving forward in the appeal process, the foundation must comply with deadlines set by the appeals court, including a Jan. 7 due date for filing the appeal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cUnfortunately, it\u2019s a laborious process,\u201d said Harris, the district\u2019s attorney.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the district is optimistic.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe expect to defeat this effort as well,\u201d Harris said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Lasherica Thornton\/ EdSource The Californians for Equal Rights Foundation, a nonprofit targeting diversity, equity and inclusion programs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80186,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[112,114,113],"class_list":["post-80185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fresno","tag-fresno","tag-fresno-headlines","tag-fresno-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}