KING Charter Schools, a vegan charter school in Pinellas County, sued the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) in 2020 over its requirement that all students participating in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) be offered milk even if they are lactose intolerant. Children of color have higher rates of lactose intolerance; this includes 80 percent of Black and Indigenous children who suffer from the condition. The action was initially filed with the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS) by KING in March 2020 as an administrative Petition for Declaratory Statemen. However, FDACS rejected KING’s position as contrary to federal NSLP regulations and, ultimately, Florida’s First District Court of Appeal affirmed FDACS’s decision.
In 2022, dietary racism in NSLP was also the focus of a call to action by a consortium of 28 health care and civil rights groups. These groups asked USDA’s Equity Commission to examine the requirement in the NSLP that required every child who participates in the program to take a carton of dairy milk with their meal unless they submit a written note from a licensed physician. Although it did not completely back away from its focus on milk, USDA revised its regulation in 2024 governing milk substitutes.