Senate Democrats Want Answers From Jeff Sessions Over Repealed Memos On Racial Diversity In Schools
The lawmakers asked Attorney General Sessions and the Education Department to hand over records.
Twenty-one Senate Democrats criticized Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Tuesday for his decision to rescind guidance memos on affirmative action — which instructed schools how they can legally consider the race of applicants to promote diversity — and pressed him to hand over records on racial discrimination complaints.
“We are deeply concerned your actions will make it more difficult for institutions to open up doors of opportunity to students and communities that have been historically underrepresented or have been left behind,” said a letter to Sessions and Education Sec. Betsy DeVos.
Guidance documents don’t amount to law, but they carry particular weight for education institutions, which rely on the Education Department for billions of dollars in federal grants.
Rescinding the memos in July, along with a swath of other guidance memos, came after the Justice Department has grown increasingly hostile toward affirmative action policies and threats of litigation around a case at Harvard University.
The lawmakers asked for a list of the complaints of discrimination based on race or ethnicity made to the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights since January 1, 2016. Further, they asked, “How will the Department advise schools about how to seek diversity in their student body consistent with the Constitution?”
Led by Sen. Patty Murray of Washington State and Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the lawmakers also pressured Sessions and DeVos’s larger rollback of civil rights enforcement more broadly.
“With almost daily attacks from your Administration on the protections for immigrants, women, children, people of color, people with disabilities, survivors of sexual assault, and LGBTQ students, it is clear there is a coordinated and systematic effort to undermine the law, divide communities, and destabilize American values at every level and in every community,” the senators wrote.
On July 3, Sessions rescinded seven so-called guidance documents that explain how the Continue reading: Senate Democrats Want Answers From Jeff Sessions Over Repealed Memos On Racial Diversity In Schools
