LOS ANGELES — The U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights has reopened an investigation into a Los Angeles Unified School District program originally intended to help elevate the academic achievement of Black students, according to a letter released by the conservative group that alleges the program is a form of race-based discrimination.

This is the second time the group Defending Education has filed a civil rights complaint against L.A. Unified's Black Student Achievement Plan.

In response to the group's first complaint and a 2023-24 investigation under the Biden administration, the Los Angeles Unified School District overhauled the $120-million academic program for Black students and eliminated race as a factor in determining which children will be helped.

The district agreed to end the exclusive focus on Black students and agreed to identify students and schools through factors other than race to settle the investigation. The district did not change the name of the program, which continues.

In its letter to Defending Education, which the group released in a press release, the education department notified the organization that it was reopening its investigation into the LAUSD program based on the recent complaint.

Education officials did not respond to questions about the letter sent to the group.

The education department's letter from the education department's Office of Civil Rights to Defending Education is dated April 23 and signed by chief attorney Anamaria Loya. It said the office would investigate whether the program "violates Title VI and its implementing regulations by providing services and programs to students based on their race and by excluding students of other races from the program."

The letter said that "opening an investigation does not mean that OCR has made a final determination with regard to the merits."

LAUSD did not directly address the new complaint, but said in a statement that the district "offers a wide range of programs and resources designed to support students regardless of race, ethnicity, or other protected groups in alignment with state and federal law and the District's Non-Discrimination Policy. BSAP is one of these programs and is open to any interested student."

The Virginia-based group, formerly known as Parents Defending Education, describes its mission as opposing "destructive practices" in schools, including policies related to race, sexual orientation and gender identity. It filed the first complaint with the federal Office for Civil Rights, alleging the program violated the Constitution and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by providing extra education services based on a student's race.

Over months of dialogue, federal officials told the district that a race-based program was legally unsustainable in light of multiple Supreme Court decisions, including the June 2023 ruling that struck down the consideration of race as a factor in college admissions.

In 2024, the civil rights office dismissed Defending Education's complaint, telling the group that LAUSD had revised its program to be accessible to students "regardless of race, color, and national origin."

The LAUSD overhaul outraged supporters of the district's Black Student Achievement Plan, called BSAP, who wanted officials to stand by the original goals of the 2021 program, which had begun to yield some early, positive results. The effort added extra school staff including a psychiatric social worker and counselors to specifically to help Black students, who made up about 7% of the district's students. BSAP schools also received money to enhance curriculum and employee training.

Under the revamped program that L.A. Unified presented to the Office for Civil Rights, the district has continued to help Black students but also extends the same support to others with similar academic needs, L.A. schools Supt. Alberto Carvalho told The Times in the fall of 2024.

The group filed their second complaint in March 2026, citing a recording of a LAUSD board meeting from late 2024 in which former board member Jackie Goldberg and Carvalho addressed students who showed up to the meeting chanting "put the Black back in BSAP."

"Do they not know that nothing has changed?" Goldberg asked Carvalho as students chanted.

"This is the way to proceed," Carvalho said to Goldberg. "Otherwise you actually compromise more."

Goldberg retired later that year. Carvalho is on paid administrative leave after his home and district office were raided earlier this year by the FBI, allegedly in connection to the procurement process behind a failed AI chatbot product the school district purchased.

Sarah Parshall Perry, vice president of Defending Education, wrote in a statement that her organization looked forward to the investigation and alleged "racial politicking and misuse of federal funding" by LAUSD.

"LAUSD outwardly feigned as though they had ended their race discrimination in the district," she wrote, "but later information revealed they had not."

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—Times staff writer Howard Blume contributed to this report.

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