Education, Civil Rights, Civic and Child Advocacy Organizations Protest DeVos Action on School Discipline
Among the most important guarantees promised by public schools is the protection of children’s rights. Civil rights laws ban discrimination at school, and it is the established role of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights to intervene when it can be shown that black and brown students or LGBTQ students or disabled students are being more severely punished and kicked out of school. In late December, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker rolled back 2014, Obama era guidance (see here and here) that sought to eliminate very sizeable disparities in the number of out of school suspensions and expulsions by race, disability, and LGBTQ status.
Last week the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights sent a powerful letter to DeVos and Whitaker, a letter endorsed by 75 national organizations and 45 state organizations protesting the scrubbing of these civil rights protections. The letter is signed by education organizations like the National Education Association, American Federation of Teachers, and National Council of Teachers of English; civil rights groups including the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, NAACP Legal Defense & Education Fund, League of United Latin American Citizens, National Indian Education Association, Human Rights Campaign, National Disability Rights Network, and Southeast Asia Resource Action Center; a wide range of children’s and education advocacy groups including the Children’s Defense Fund, Democrats for Education Reform, National Black Child Development Institute, National Center for Learning Disabilities, Stand for Children, and the Education Trust; and civic organizations including the American Association of University Women, People for the American Way, National Urban League, PFLAG National, Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Union for Reform Judaism.
It is worth reading the letter, which describes our society’s legal promise that schools will CONTINUE READING: Education, Civil Rights, Civic and Child Advocacy Organizations Protest DeVos Action on School Discipline | janresseger
