Failing California school district pays for black kids to learn to rap

One of California’s most underperforming school districts is spending nearly $300,000 teaching kids to rap, raising the alarm among DEI watchdogs.

In January, the Merced City School District in the Central Valley — one of the state’s lower-performing school districts based on test performances — signed a $270,000 agreement with Fresno-based School Yard Rap, which describes its approach to learning as “edutainment.” 

The contracts include a summer “Rap Camp” and an “African American Affinity Group”, which is capped for 100 African American students, raising questions about whether the programming complies with federal law.

“Schools cannot include or exclude students from programs and activities based on race or ethnicity — it’s against the law,” said Erika Sanzi, senior director of communications at Defending Education, an advocacy group that tracks equity-focused programming in schools.

In a little over a year, Merced has handed out three contracts worth a total of $610,000 to School Yard Rap, which operates across 28 states, including New York, New Jersey and Texas.

Programming includes history lessons, songwriting, DJing and performances. But the possibility of race-based programming in Merced public schools is now on the radar of federal officials.

“It is illegal for the government to offer benefits solely on the basis of race,” Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division told The Post in statement. “We have not had the opportunity to investigate these allegations, but if true, they are troubling.”

District officials did not respond to multiple requests for comment by phone and email, but Brandon Brown, a former school teacher and founder of School Yard Rap, disputed that the programming is exclusionary.

“This camp specifically — the African American Affinity Camp — is open to every single student grades 3rd to 8th, focusing on African American history and the diaspora,” Brown told The Post.

“I think this is politically driven and the reason this is being called out.”

In one of its signature programs titled “Moor than a Month,” song lyrics mimicking the style of hip hop group Migos take direct aim at white patriarchy.

“I’mma be Black every day that I’m here, no cap, for more than a month, just like every Black kid in class,” the song says.

“So this album for them, but this track’s for you — every teacher and parent, you need this truth. 

“History books have a white male skew, but believe me I ain’t blaming you. That’s who wrote it on paper — it’s a cycle by nature. We give what we got, but I’m here to break it and bring education on what is not taught, trust it’s a lot.”

Brown told The Post that School Yard Rap’s view is that giving children more information about the culture of others “helps eradicate a lot of hate and ignorance in the country.”

Students in Merced’s school district, which serves around 11,000 students between kindergarten and eighth grade, have historically struggled with a student-teacher ratio of 25 to 1, according to Niche, a website that compiles data to rank and review schools.

School Yard Rap also hosted a concert in which a performer championed the legacy of farmworker organizer César Chávez, who this week was outed as an alleged sexual predator who groomed and raped under age girls.

Federal law prohibits public schools that receive federal funding from excluding students or distributing benefits based on race. Under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, race-based programs can trigger legal scrutiny. 

The U.S. Department of Justice under President Trump has opened investigations into school districts over race-based hiring and student programming, while the Department of Education has warned that programs separating or favoring students based on race could violate civil rights law and risk federal funding.

In April 2025, feds launched an investigation into Chicago Public Schools’ Black Student Success Plan over alleged race-based benefits, and a September 2025 probe into Des Moines Public Schools for race-based hiring practices.

“We want to have a lot of African American students in this program to learn about their culture and history and aspire to more, but it’s not in any violation of federal funding, because it is not limited to African American students,” Brown said.

However, Defending Ed officials have taken issue not only with the programming content, but also the Merced school district’s priorities in a statement to The Post.

“If equity was my goal,” Sanzi said, “I’d start with reading and math scores and income level to identify the students most in need of extra support.”