The U.S. Department of Education has not yet specified the next steps for sanctioning schools following the deadline and hasn't disclosed whether any districts proactively contacted the federal agency with proof of compliance.

"Additional guidance on implementation is forthcoming," Craig Trainor, the agency's acting assistant director for Civil Rights, wrote via email to The Epoch Times.

Trainor's Feb. 14 letter provided to states and school districts noted the 14-day deadline for ceasing DEI programs.

He called race-based preferential treatment, crude racial stereotypes, and practices that promote segregation within a school "a shameful echo of a darker period in this country's history."

"The department will no longer tolerate the overt and covert racial discrimination that has become widespread in this nation's educational institutions," the letter reads.

"The law is clear: treating students differently on the basis of race to achieve nebulous goals such as diversity, racial balancing, social justice, or equity is illegal under controlling Supreme Court precedent."

That prompted a lawsuit from the American Federation of Teachers and the American Sociological Association.

The Feb. 25 complaint, filed in a Maryland federal court, seeks to bar enforcement of Trump's anti-DEI policy on grounds that it is overly vague and violates free speech rights.

The Epoch Times has previously reported that the five largest school districts in the nation (serving New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, and Las Vegas) collectively stand to lose more than $5 billion in federal funding if they don't end DEI practices.

The deadline falls at the same time that many public school districts are planning their 2025–2026 budgets. Federal money typically makes up about 10 percent of a local district's annual spending plan.