Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey ordered a St. Louis school district Wednesday to abandon race-based hiring after The Daily Signal reported on the district’s plan to double its percentage of minority teachers. 

Bailey, a Republican, wrote to Webster Groves School District Superintendent John Simpson to demand that he and other administrators “cease and desist using all unlawful race-based preferences and quotas it has adopted for hiring and retention.” 

“Under both state and federal law, school districts may not treat employees and applicants differently because of their race and may not set racial quotas,” Bailey said in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Daily Signal.