White House aims to limit civil rights probes in schools
The 8 million African-American children enrolled in the nation’s public schools will, at some point in their studies, learn about the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.
This landmark case, decided in 1954, struck down state laws establishing separate public schools segregated by race.
They will learn that the court addressed a systemic injustice. The civil rights the court protected in Topeka, Kan., would be protected everywhere in the United States.
The idea that race discrimination can be systemic has guided education policy ever since, but the Trump administration aims to change that. Starting this year, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights will begin to treat accusations of discriminatory behavior differently. Instead of investigating complaints with an open-ended, broad perspective to find out if a problem is widespread, cases will be adjudicated in isolation.
New guidelines due to be finalized this year remove the word “systemic.” Schools will have more latitude, and the current appeals process will be eliminated. The department will be able to reach agreements without making parents privy to the findings of its investigations.
The Brown ruling did not end systemic discrimination. That’s why, in 1979, the Office for Civil Rights was established to ensure fairness by race, color, national origin, age and sex. Under President Barack Obama, it expanded to cover sexual orientation and gender identity and physical handicaps.
There is a rhetorical strain in American politics, now best exemplified by President Donald Trump and his Republican allies, that decries this as government meddling, that denies that bias can be systemic. Rather, it’s one bad cop, one bad manager or one bad loan officer who is to blame. What a convenient way to dodge. Just put the blinders on. And ensure a limited view by policy.
Public pressure may quash these DOE changes. But as we’ve seen with any number of Trump’s decisions, raising the hue and cry of liberals is part of the payoff. His dogged determination to be “politically incorrect,” to pursue any deplorable policy idea to its conclusion, wins the most ardent praise of his admirers.
Make no mistake: What has been proposed for the Department of Edu- cation’s Office for Civil Rights will amount to dismantling its effectiveness.
And, as with every evil deed this administration commits, it comes with a smarmy PR justification. When asked to comment, a spokeswoman for the Department of Education reportedly said, “Justice delayed is justice denied, and justice for many complainants has been denied for too long.”
What a perfect misappropriation of sentiment. When it comes to discrimination in public education, justice is sidelined not by paperwork backlogs but by attitudes of bias, through systems that don’t fairly address problems because they’ve developed to shelter the offenders, not the victims of unfair treatment.
These are the very sort of obstacles to fairness in education that the broader investigative efforts were designed to solve. And they are the obstacles the Trump administration hopes to keep firmly in place.