Earlier this week, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a devastating ruling that opens the door for the dismantling of the Department of Education, stripping away decades of progress in public education and placing millions of students at risk. For Latino, immigrant, and low-income youth, this isn’t just a policy shift. It’s a full-scale assault.
The unsigned decision enables the executive branch to gut the Department of Education’s core functions without accountability. In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor called out the danger directly: “When the Executive publicly announces its intent to break the law, and then executes on that promise, it is the Judiciary’s duty to check that lawlessness, not expedite it.”
Let’s be clear, this is not a quiet erosion of rights. It is a violent, deliberate dismantling of the systems that protect our youth.
The timing couldn’t be more alarming. Just last week, our communities in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties were hit with one of the largest ICE raids in history. Over 200 families were torn apart. Fear and confusion swept through our neighborhoods. Parents were detained, leaving many children alone and vulnerable. Entire communities were retraumatized by the experience.
Now, in the same breath, the highest court in the nation threatens the very agency tasked with ensuring every child in this country has access to an education.
At Future Leaders of America, we see the compounding weight that our youth carry: navigating school systems never designed for their success, worrying if a parent will come home, and now watching the promise of education be politically dismantled. These are not hypotheticals; they are daily realities.
This Supreme Court ruling puts over a thousand educational workers’ jobs in jeopardy and strips federal protections for students with disabilities, English learners, and youth from under-resourced communities. It sends a chilling message to our young people: You are not worth investing in.
We reject that message entirely.
For over four decades, FLA has worked to increase the number of Latino youth who succeed in higher education, not through charity, but through power-building. We develop leaders who understand their worth and are ready to fight for their communities. And in moments like this, our mission has never been clearer.
We will not stay silent. We will not retreat.
If federal protections are being stripped away, we must double down on safeguarding our schools right here, where we have the power to act.
We call on educators, elected officials, and community leaders to rise with us. To our youth: your resilience is unmatched. Your brilliance is unstoppable. And in the face of these attacks, we will continue to fight beside you, for your future, and for the future we all deserve.
Gloria Soto is executive director of Future Leaders of America.
