The Daily Signal Reports: School districts across the country have established diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, offices to reduce discrimination, and the federal Department of Education regularly touts the value of DEI programs to quell bias. Yet nationwide, school officials reported a “record number” of discrimination complaints last year.

How can this be?

In truth, studies show that DEI offices accomplish little more than producing a lot of bureaucratic sound and fury on the taxpayers’ dime.

Some of the complaints came from parents of children with special needs who reported that schools neglected their children during the pandemic. But that didn’t keep The New York Times from blaming conservative lawmakers who, the newspaper’s report asserted, “rolled back civil rights protections” by rejecting the bias and discrimination inherent in DEI programs inspired by critical race theory.

The number of complaints logged in 2022 (approximately 19,000) is some 19% higher than the then-record number reported in 2016—the year before former President Donald Trump took office. Yet DEI efforts were already well underway back then.