Vernellia R. Randall, Weekly Racial Justice Update — July 19–25, 2026, Racism.org (July 28, 2026).

 

2026 Jul 28 2026 08 03 20 AMFederal agencies moved to dismantle longstanding methods for detecting racial discrimination in education and employment, while courts confronted executive efforts affecting voting, immigration, political expression, and Tribal sovereignty.

The week’s major developments included the removal of disparate-impact protections from federal education regulations, an EEOC proposal to end six decades of employer demographic reporting, new investigations of medical-school admissions, and an executive order attacking the Smithsonian’s presentation of United States history. Courts kept federal mail-voting provisions blocked in 23 states and the District of Columbia, allowed Tennessee to divide Memphis’s majority-Black congressional district, protected some immigrants’ work authorization, and issued conflicting rulings involving pro-Palestinian noncitizens. Community-media research also identified significant developments involving Somali childcare providers, Muslim and Arab students, threats against a Black Muslim sheriff, Tribal burial sites, border-wall construction on Tribal land, and police accountability.

The developments are not listed in a hierarchy; their order does not reflect their relative importance.

Table of Contents

  1. Education Department Removes Disparate-Impact Protections From Title VI Regulations
  2. EEOC Moves to End Six Decades of Employer Race and Sex Reporting
  3. Education Department Opens Investigations of Five Medical Schools
  4. Executive Order Directs Signs Attacking Smithsonian History Exhibits
  5. Federal Data Undercut Claims of Widespread Noncitizen Voting
  6. Appeals Court Keeps Mail-Voting Provisions Blocked in 23 States and D.C.
  7. Federal Judges Allow Tennessee to Divide Memphis’s Majority-Black District
  8. Civil-Rights Groups Seek Records Behind Childcare Funding Restrictions
  9. Judge Temporarily Protects Work Authorization for Asylum Seekers and TPS Holders
  10. Conflicting Appeals Rulings Divide Protections for Pro-Palestinian Noncitizens
  11. Preliminary Agreement Protects Muslim and Arab Students’ Privacy and Expression
  12. Nolan Wells’s Death Will Be Presented to a Mississippi Grand Jury
  13. Police Killing of Corey Ruiz Brings Protests and Demands for Accountability
  14. Racist and Anti-Muslim Threat Targets Delaware County Sheriff
  15. Tohono O’odham Nation Challenges Border Wall as a Violation of Sovereignty
  16. Investigation Finds Fired Officers Disproportionately Rehired by Tribal Police Departments
  17. Lummi Nation Secures Preliminary Protection for Ancestral Burial Sites
  18. Bottom Line
  19. Search and Source Transparency Note

1. Education Department Removes Disparate-Impact Protections From Title VI Regulations

The Department of Education issued a final rule removing provisions from its Title VI regulations that allowed federal investigators to examine whether apparently neutral school policies produced unjustified racial or national-origin discrimination. The rule took effect on July 24, 2026. The department issued it without the ordinary advance notice-and-comment process.

Disparate-impact analysis does not make every statistical disparity unlawful. It asks whether a policy imposes a substantial unequal burden, whether the policy serves a legitimate educational purpose, and whether less discriminatory alternatives are available. The standard has been particularly important in reviewing school discipline, school closures, language-access practices, student assignments, and other policies that may disproportionately harm Black, Latino, Native, Asian American, and Pacific Islander students.

The department maintained that disparate-impact enforcement encouraged racial balancing and exceeded the meaning of Title VI. Sixty civil-rights and education organizations responded that discrimination is not always announced openly and that the change abandons an important method for identifying systemic exclusion.

Why It Matters

Intentional discrimination is difficult to prove because decision-makers rarely document a racial motive. Disparate-impact enforcement provided a way to challenge policies that appear neutral but systematically burden students of color. Removing that protection makes it easier for schools to maintain discriminatory discipline systems, attendance boundaries, testing rules, school closures, and other practices without meaningful federal scrutiny.

Sources

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2. EEOC Moves to End Six Decades of Employer Race and Sex Reporting

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued a proposed rule that would eliminate the EEO-1 reporting requirement under which large private employers disclose the race, ethnicity, and sex of workers in different job categories. The reporting system has existed since 1966 and generally applies to private employers with at least 100 employees, as well as certain federal contractors.

The proposal is not final and remains subject to public comment and a scheduled hearing. If adopted, it would end one of the federal government’s central sources of information about hiring, promotion, occupational segregation, and access to leadership positions. The EEOC is prohibited from publicly releasing an individual employer’s report, but the information has been used in aggregate research and discrimination investigations.

The EEOC’s proposal asserts that the reports impose substantial burdens, are unnecessary for enforcement, and may be inconsistent with equal-employment law. Former commissioners and civil-rights advocates argue that demographic reporting helps employers and investigators identify barriers that individual complaints alone may not reveal.

Why It Matters

Employment discrimination is harder to challenge when the government stops collecting the evidence needed to identify it. Ending EEO-1 reporting would not eliminate racial and gender inequality. It would make unequal hiring, promotion, pay, and access to leadership positions less visible and therefore easier to deny.

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3. Education Department Opens Investigations of Five Medical Schools

The Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights opened investigations into admissions practices at five medical schools: Dartmouth College’s Geisel School of Medicine, East Carolina University’s Brody School of Medicine, Saint Louis University School of Medicine, Western University of Health Sciences, and William Carey University College of Osteopathic Medicine.

The department alleged possible racial discrimination but did not publicly identify particular applicants, admissions decisions, policies, or statistical evidence supporting the investigations. Dartmouth and East Carolina said they comply with federal law and remain confident in their admissions practices.

The investigations follow separate Justice Department inquiries into 15 medical schools. Colleges must comply with the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision restricting race-conscious admissions. That decision does not prohibit schools from recruiting broadly, addressing racial health disparities, or considering how an applicant’s individual experiences—including experiences with discrimination—shaped the applicant’s character and ability to serve others.

Why It Matters

These investigations are part of a broader federal campaign to treat racial-equity efforts as unlawful discrimination. Medical schools must comply with the Supreme Court’s admissions decision, but they are still permitted to recruit broadly, examine health disparities, and consider how an applicant’s individual experiences shaped that person. Investigations announced without disclosed evidence can pressure schools to abandon lawful programs designed to address severe racial inequalities in medical education and health care.

Sources

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4. Executive Order Directs Signs Attacking Smithsonian History Exhibits

President Trump issued Executive Order 14467, “Restoring Trust in the Smithsonian Institution.” The order directs federal officials to place temporary signs on National Park Service sidewalks or walkways outside the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. The signs are intended to publicize the administration’s claim that the museum presents inaccurate information and an excessively negative account of the United States.

The order relies on a White House report titled Saving America’s Story, which accuses museum leadership of ideological capture, anti-Americanism, and political activism. Because the Smithsonian is not an ordinary executive-branch agency, the order places the signs on federally maintained property outside the museum rather than directly ordering the museum to alter its galleries.

The action is part of a larger effort to control how federal institutions discuss slavery, segregation, Native dispossession, immigration exclusion, gender inequality, and other forms of government injustice. The administration treats historical interpretation that examines racial hierarchy as an ideological attack rather than as an essential part of understanding the country’s development.

Why It Matters

This is an effort to control public memory. The history of the United States cannot be honestly told without slavery, Native dispossession, segregation, immigration exclusion, racial violence, and resistance to oppression. Government officials should not use executive power to intimidate museums into presenting a sanitized history that protects national myths rather than telling the truth.

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5. Federal Data Undercut Claims of Widespread Noncitizen Voting

A Reuters examination of federal prosecutions found little support for claims that noncitizen voting is widespread or organized. Federal prosecutors charged 129 people under the federal noncitizen-voting statute from its enactment in 1996 through July 2026. None of those cases alleged a coordinated effort to influence an election.

Reuters found that many cases involved confusion, mistaken advice from election officials, or administrative error. Among defendants whose immigration status could be determined, most were lawful permanent residents. Thirty of the 129 charges were dismissed, and 26 remained pending at the time of the investigation.

The investigation also documented cases in which people were prosecuted or deported years after a single vote they said they believed was lawful. The administration continues to argue that aggressive enforcement and new citizenship-verification systems are necessary to prevent unlawful voting.

Why It Matters

The evidence does not support claims of widespread organized voting by noncitizens. Those claims are nevertheless being used to justify proof-of-citizenship requirements, voter-roll purges, and increased federal control over elections. Such measures can burden lawful voters, including naturalized citizens, Tribal citizens, older people, married women whose names have changed, and people who cannot easily obtain birth records.

Sources

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6. Appeals Court Keeps Mail-Voting Provisions Blocked in 23 States and D.C.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit denied requests by the federal government and 12 intervening states to suspend an injunction against portions of Executive Order 14399, “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections.”

The lawsuit was brought by 23 states and the District of Columbia. The executive order directs federal agencies to compile state citizenship lists and gives the United States Postal Service a substantial role in determining the conditions under which mail and absentee ballots would be transmitted.

A federal district court had entered judgment for the plaintiff states on several claims and blocked specified provisions for federal elections occurring on or before November 3, 2026. The injunction applies only within the plaintiff jurisdictions. On July 25, the appeals court denied the government’s request to suspend that injunction while the appeal proceeds.

Why It Matters

The President does not have general authority to rewrite state election law by executive order. Federal interference with mail voting can disenfranchise older adults, disabled voters, rural communities, Tribal citizens, caregivers, and workers who cannot easily vote in person. Election rules should not be changed abruptly through executive command, especially when those changes could disrupt established systems and create unequal treatment of ballots.

Sources

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7. Federal Judges Allow Tennessee to Divide Memphis’s Majority-Black District

A three-judge federal panel declined to block Tennessee’s new congressional map before the August 6 primary. The map divides Memphis and Shelby County, including the state’s only majority-Black congressional district, among three districts.

The plaintiffs argued that Tennessee intentionally weakened Black political power. State officials responded that legislators were motivated by partisan advantage rather than race. The panel concluded that the plaintiffs had not presented sufficient direct or circumstantial evidence that race, rather than politics, motivated the map.

The ruling did not finally resolve all claims in the litigation. It denied a preliminary injunction and allowed the map to be used while the case proceeds. Early voting had already begun, and election officials argued that changing boundaries at that point would disrupt the election.

Why It Matters

The legal distinction between race and political party often protects racial gerrymandering rather than preventing it. In states where Black voters strongly support one party, lawmakers can weaken Black voting power and then claim they acted only for partisan reasons. That distinction allows racial vote dilution to continue under another name.

Sources

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8. Civil-Rights Groups Seek Records Behind Childcare Funding Restrictions

The American Civil Liberties Union, National Women’s Law Center, National Center for Law and Economic Justice, and affiliated organizations sued the Department of Health and Human Services for failing to respond to a Freedom of Information Act request.

The groups seek communications concerning federal childcare and family-assistance funding restrictions imposed after a social-media influencer published allegations of fraud involving Somali childcare providers in Minnesota. They also seek communications between federal officials and the influencer, Nick Shirley, whose video was publicly praised by administration officials.

The lawsuit is a transparency case. It does not decide whether particular providers committed fraud or whether the earlier funding restrictions were lawful. The complaint alleges that HHS had not produced responsive documents or explained its withholding more than 130 days after receiving the request.

Why It Matters

Government action should be based on verified evidence, not social-media allegations directed at an ethnic community. Fraud should be investigated, but allegations against particular providers cannot justify stigmatizing Somali businesses or threatening childcare funding for families who had nothing to do with any misconduct. The requested records may show whether federal officials acted on evidence or on racialized political pressure.

Sources

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9. Judge Temporarily Protects Work Authorization for Asylum Seekers and TPS Holders

U.S. District Judge Nathaniel Gorton granted in part an emergency request to prevent U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services from immediately applying several challenged immigration policies while the court considers a broader request to suspend the policies.

The plaintiffs include immigrant-membership organizations representing asylum applicants and people who hold or previously held Temporary Protected Status. They challenge changes affecting employment-authorization documents, asylum-related fees, and the retroactive application of agency policies.

The administrative stay temporarily prevented the government from treating certain employment-authorization documents as expired and from imposing specified penalties for nonpayment of a new annual asylum fee. The order was preliminary and did not decide the ultimate legality of the challenged policies.

Why It Matters

Work authorization is not a minor administrative benefit. It allows people to support themselves, care for their children, pay rent, obtain health care, and avoid dependence while their immigration cases remain pending. The government should not be permitted to destroy families’ economic stability through abrupt rules that may later be found unlawful.

Sources

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10. Conflicting Appeals Rulings Divide Protections for Pro-Palestinian Noncitizens

Two federal appeals courts issued conflicting decisions about whether noncitizens targeted after pro-Palestinian advocacy may use habeas corpus to challenge their detention before completing immigration proceedings.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed the order that had freed Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian lawful permanent resident and former Columbia University student. The court concluded that the district court lacked jurisdiction over the habeas petition and that Mahdawi had not exhausted available immigration remedies. The court did not decide whether the government had targeted him unlawfully because of protected speech.

Two days later, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit rejected the government’s effort to overturn relief obtained by Badar Khan Suri, an Indian citizen and Georgetown University scholar. The Fourth Circuit held that the relevant immigration statutes did not eliminate the district court’s habeas jurisdiction over Suri’s challenge to his detention.

Why It Matters

The government should not use immigration detention to punish protected political speech. Habeas corpus exists to test whether confinement is lawful. Requiring a person to remain detained throughout a lengthy immigration process before a federal court may examine a constitutional violation weakens one of the most basic protections against executive abuse.

Sources

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11. Preliminary Agreement Protects Muslim and Arab Students’ Privacy and Expression

The Council on American-Islamic Relations announced a preliminary agreement in its lawsuit against Fairfax County Public Schools, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, and school administrators in Virginia.

The plaintiffs are Muslim and Arab students who allege that the school system discriminated against them by imposing suspensions and other sanctions for participating in a social-media video trend and displaying Palestinian symbols, while treating similar expression by other students differently.

Under the agreement, the defendants will not impose additional discipline for the same expression, punish the students for displaying specified Palestinian symbols, or disclose their disciplinary records to third parties except under stated conditions. The agreement remains in place during the lawsuit and is not a final finding that the school system violated the Constitution or Title VI.

Why It Matters

Schools may regulate genuinely disruptive conduct, but they may not punish Muslim, Arab, or Palestinian students more severely because of the political content of their speech or the identity of the students expressing it. Disciplinary records can follow students into college admissions, scholarships, and employment. Protecting those records is therefore an important part of preventing temporary school discipline from becoming a permanent penalty.

Sources

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12. Nolan Wells’s Death Will Be Presented to a Mississippi Grand Jury

The district attorney for Mississippi’s coastal counties announced that evidence concerning the death of Nolan Wells will be presented to a grand jury. Wells, an 18-year-old Black man, was found dead after traveling to Horn Island over the July Fourth weekend with three white companions.

An independent autopsy obtained by the family classified the cause and manner of death as undetermined. The examination did not establish that Wells was killed, but the family’s medical examiner said the available evidence could not rule out foul play. The family and its attorneys have criticized the speed with which the death was initially described as accidental and have requested a complete, independent investigation.

A grand-jury presentation does not mean that prosecutors have concluded a crime occurred. The grand jury may indict, decline to indict, or request additional investigation.

Why It Matters

The deaths of Black people have too often been labeled accidental before law-enforcement agencies completed a serious investigation. That history makes transparency, independent medical review, preservation of evidence, and careful witness examination essential. The outcome should not be predetermined. The evidence must be fully investigated before authorities decide what happened.

Sources

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13. Police Killing of Corey Ruiz Brings Protests and Demands for Accountability

A Madison, Wisconsin, police officer shot and killed Corey Durell Ruiz, 38, on July 22 after a confrontation on a city street.

Police said Ruiz possessed a knife and injured an officer during the encounter. Bystander video captured portions of the confrontation, but the Madison Police Department does not generally equip its officers with body cameras. The Wisconsin Department of Justice opened an independent investigation.

The killing brought protests and disrupted or led organizers to cancel several community events. Civil-rights attorney Ben Crump, representing the Ruiz family, called for criminal charges. No criminal determination had been made by the end of the coverage period.

Why It Matters

When police kill a person, police accounts of the event are not the final account of what happened. That is especially true when officers do not wear body cameras. An independent investigation must examine bystander video, physical evidence, witness accounts, medical findings, and the officers’ conduct before, during, and after the shooting. Accountability requires more than accepting the explanation of the agency whose officer used deadly force.

Sources

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14. Racist and Anti-Muslim Threat Targets Delaware County Sheriff

Delaware County, Pennsylvania, Sheriff Siddiq Kamara received a voicemail containing racist and Islamophobic language and a threat of violence. County officials referred the communication to the Criminal Investigation Division of the district attorney’s office.

Kamara is the first African immigrant and Muslim elected sheriff in Delaware County. The Council on American-Islamic Relations described the threat as an attempt to intimidate not only Kamara but also Black, immigrant, and Muslim communities represented by his election.

The identity and motive of the caller had not been established through a completed criminal proceeding during the coverage period.

Why It Matters

Racist and anti-Muslim threats against an elected official are intended to do more than frighten one person. They send a warning to Black, immigrant, African, and Muslim communities that political participation may expose them to violence. Such threats are attacks on democratic government and on the right of marginalized communities to hold public power.

Sources

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15. Tohono O’odham Nation Challenges Border Wall as a Violation of Sovereignty

A federal district court heard arguments in the Tohono O’odham Nation’s lawsuit seeking to stop the Department of Homeland Security from constructing 62 miles of border wall across the Nation’s reservation without Tribal consent.

The Nation alleges that the construction would unlawfully diminish reservation boundaries, constitute trespass, damage sacred lands and resources, and further divide O’odham communities whose traditional homeland extends across the United States–Mexico border. The Nation’s complaint describes religious, cultural, governmental, and family connections that continue across that border.

The federal government defended its border-security authority. The Nation emphasized that it has cooperated extensively with federal law-enforcement agencies for decades, provides land for federal operating bases and surveillance equipment, participates in joint enforcement efforts, and has invested its own resources in border security.

Why It Matters

Tribal sovereignty means more than allowing a Tribal nation to comment after the federal government has already decided what it will do. Building a permanent wall on reservation land without Tribal consent raises issues of ownership, jurisdiction, burial sites, sacred places, environmental protection, and cultural survival. Federal border policy does not erase the Nation’s authority over its own land.

Sources

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16. Investigation Finds Fired Officers Disproportionately Rehired by Tribal Police Departments

An investigation by InvestigateWest and the Invisible Institute examined nearly three decades of Washington law-enforcement employment records. Tribal police departments represented approximately 2.5 percent of the state’s police workforce but hired about 11 percent of fired officers who moved directly into another law-enforcement job.

The investigation described officers who had been fired, resigned while facing termination, or accumulated significant misconduct records before being hired by another department. It also identified weaknesses in the state decertification process, incomplete disciplinary information, and delays that permit officers to obtain new law-enforcement positions before misconduct reviews are completed.

The reporting did not conclude that Tribal governments are indifferent to misconduct. It identified structural pressures, including small departments, severe staffing shortages, limited recruiting resources, higher training costs, incomplete employment records, and inconsistent certification requirements. Most officers who moved after being fired were hired by non-Tribal agencies.

Why It Matters

Tribal communities have the right to operate their own police departments, but sovereignty does not eliminate the need for resources, reliable disciplinary records, and effective officer-certification systems. Staffing shortages and weak state oversight can make small departments vulnerable to hiring officers with serious misconduct histories. The answer is not to stigmatize Tribal governments. It is to provide the information, funding, training, and enforcement mechanisms necessary to keep dangerous officers from moving from one department to another.

Sources

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17. Lummi Nation Secures Preliminary Protection for Ancestral Burial Sites

Reporting published during the coverage week detailed a federal judge’s July 15 preliminary injunction protecting Lummi Nation cultural sites in Point Roberts, Washington.

The injunction requires Whidbey Telecom to provide the Lummi Nation with at least 30 days’ notice before conducting future ground-disturbing work. The court found that the Nation was likely to succeed on its claim that telecommunications construction disturbed burial sites and that displaced ancestral remains had not been reinterred under the Nation’s supervision as required by Washington law.

A limited assessment of only part of the excavated area identified nearly 1,200 artifacts and ancestral remains. The court declined to grant every form of requested relief because a complete assessment had not yet been conducted, but it found that advance notice was necessary to prevent the Nation from again being surprised by excavation.

Why It Matters

Infrastructure development does not justify disturbing Native graves or excluding a Tribal nation from decisions involving its ancestors. Burial sites are not simply construction obstacles, and cultural injury cannot always be repaired after the damage is done. Advance notice and Tribal supervision are minimum protections when development threatens ancestral remains and sacred land.

Sources

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Bottom Line

These developments are not isolated. They reflect a coordinated federal effort to weaken the laws, regulations, data systems, and institutions that make racial discrimination visible and enforceable. The administration is restricting civil-rights enforcement, attacking racial-equity programs, attempting to control how the nation’s history is told, and expanding executive power over elections and immigration.

The courts imposed some limits, but the protection was uneven. Mail-voting restrictions and measures threatening immigrants’ work authorization remained blocked. At the same time, Tennessee was allowed to use a congressional map that divides Black voting power, and the constitutional rights of people detained after pro-Palestinian advocacy now depend in part on the federal circuit in which their cases arise.

The week also shows why racial-justice reporting cannot depend only on national news organizations and government announcements. Developments affecting Somali providers, Muslim and Arab students, a Black Muslim elected official, Native burial grounds, Tribal sovereignty, and police accountability were more visible in community and regional reporting. Without those sources, significant racial-justice developments would be overlooked.

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Search and Source Transparency Note

This update covers Sunday, July 19, through Saturday, July 25, 2026. Live research was conducted and updated on July 27–28, 2026.

Research proceeded through two separate tracks:

  1. A general legal and national search covering courts, government agencies, civil-rights organizations, national and regional news outlets, legal reporting, and primary documents.
  2. An independent community-media discovery search covering Black, Latino, Indigenous, Asian American and Pacific Islander, Arab American and Muslim, immigrant, and other affected communities.

ChatGPT assisted with live searching, source comparison, organization, and drafting. Professor Vernellia R. Randall retains responsibility for editorial review and all publication decisions.

When a story involved a court case, executive order, regulation, or another formal government action, the source list includes the underlying official document whenever one was publicly available. Some court filings are linked through litigant or legal-document repositories when free copies are not available on official court websites.

No Wikipedia article was used as a source. When Wikipedia appeared in search results, it was treated only as a possible lead and was not cited.

The Lummi Nation order was issued on July 15, before the formal coverage period, but it is included because substantial reporting about the order was published during the July 19–25 coverage period.

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 Vernellia R. Randall, Professor Emerita of Law, University of Dayton School of Law. This article was drafted with the assistance of ChatGPT, an AI language model.  ChatGPT assisted with live source discovery, source comparison, organization, and drafting. Professor Randall retains responsibility for editorial review and publication decisions. Wikipedia was used, if at all, only to identify possible leads and was not used as a final cited source.