The Education Department is proposing to delay by two years, to 2020, an Obama-era rule that would push states to ensure that students of color are not overrepresented in special education and put in programs because of racial bias.

The department, headed by Betsy DeVos, expressed its intention to seek public comment on the plan to delay the rule. A notice published in the Trump administration’s Unified Agenda, which includes planned actions, says:

“The Department seeks comment on whether to extend by two years the compliance date of these regulations from July 1, 2018, to July 1, 2020, and, if so, whether to extend the date for including children ages 3 through 5 in the analysis of significant disproportionality with respect both to the identification of children as children with disabilities and to the identification of children as children with a particular impairment from July 1, 2020, to July 1, 2022.”

The Obama administration set the rule in February 2016, saying it was aimed at improving equity in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which aims to ensure fairness in the identification, placement and discipline of students with disabilities. The 2016 announcement of the rule by Obama’s Education Department cited an analysis of state-submitted data showing that large racial and ethnic disparities in special education programs were going unidentified in many districts around the country. The rule was described this way by the Obama administration:

“The proposed Equity in IDEA rule would, for the first time, require states to implement a standard approach to compare racial and ethnic groups, with reasonable thresholds for determining when disparities have become significant. That determination is critical to ensuring students get the supports they need and deserve.”

DeVos’ department has been considering for months whether to delay the rule or even scrap it. Supporters of a delay say school districts need more time to implement the rule because it is costly, and that the Obama administration’s rule amounted to micromanaging districts and imposing requirements that should be left to Congress.

Others oppose the delay. Curt Decker, the executive director of the advocacy group National Disability Rights Network, an advocacy group, said in a statement:

“Protections are needed now to ensure that every child has the same chance to receive a quality education. We strongly oppose any effort to delay implementation. We know there is a problem that needs to be fixed — delaying implementation will only hurt children who are already in school and send a message to them that they are not [as] important as other children are.”

In October, the Education Department rescinded 72 policy documents that outline the rights of students with disabilities as part of the Trump administration’s effort to eliminate regulations it deems superfluous.