THERE IS NO LAW THAT ALLOWS THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION TO CONTROL ALL POLICIES OF LOCAL SCHOOLS: And yet they manage to exercise control by making everything into a race or sex discrimination issue. During the course of what became an 8-year investigation, Wake County Schools lowered their use of suspensions to mollify the Department of Education. Now Wake County Schools have officially agreed to stick with that lower use of suspensions to get federal investigators off their backs. Is that good disciplinary policy? Maybe, maybe not. But it is supposed to be up to Wake County schools to decide that, not the Department of Education. Instead, the Department of Education claims the right bully schools about any policy that has a disparate impact based on race, color, national origin or sex (all the while knowing full well that all policies have a disparate impact on some protected group). See The Department of Education’s Obama-Era Initiative on Racial Disparities in School Discipline: Wrong for Students and Teachers, Wrong on the Law.