How many times have you heard Trump or DeVos claiming that their privatization plan for public schools is “the civil rights issue of our time”? They heard the same line from Obama and Duncan and even Mitt Romney, so we can’t credit them with originality.
Where they differ from Obama and Duncan is that they have made it clear that they intend to eviscerate the government agencies that enforce civil rights.
This is an example of cognitive dissonance, hypocrisy, or lying. You be the judge.
“The Trump administration is planning to disband the Labor Department division that has policed discrimination among federal contractors for four decades, according to the White House’s newly proposed budget, part of wider efforts to rein in government programs that promote civil rights.
“As outlined in Labor’s fiscal 2018 plan, the move would fold the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, now home to 600 employees, into another government agency in the name of cost-cutting.
“The proposal to dismantle the compliance office comes at a time when the Trump administration is reducing the role of the federal government in fighting discrimination and protecting minorities by cutting budgets, dissolving programs and appointing officials unsympathetic to previous practices.
“The new leadership at the Environmental Protection Agency, for instance, has proposed eliminating its environmental justice program, which addresses pollution that poses health threats specifically concentrated in minority communities. The program, in part, offers money and technical help to residents who are confronted with local hazards such as leaking oil tanks or emissions from chemical plants.
“Under President Trump’s proposed budget, the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights — which has investigated thousands of complaints of discrimination in school districts across the country and set new standards for how colleges should respond to allegations of sexual assault and harassment — would also see significant staffing cuts. Administration officials acknowledge in budget documents that the civil rights office will have to scale back the number of investigations it conducts and limit travel to school districts to carry out its work.”
As we know, Betsy DeVos selected an acting head of the Education Department who is known for her opposition to affirmative action.
“In Education Department budget documents, the administration acknowledges that proposed funding levels would hamper the work of that department’s civil rights office. The budget would reduce staffing by more than 40 employees.”
Is anyone really surprised? This makes Trump’s base happy.
This morning I heard from NPR that Trump has arranged for a dozen or so of his advisors to be exempt from any charges of unethical conduct.
NPR also reported that bigots have twice placed a noose on the grounds of the new African American Museum in DC.
The appallingness quotient of this misadministration is off the charts.
Dismantling civil rights is a symptom of authoritarianism. We have seen this in other countries like Russia, the Philippines and Venezuela where Maduro wants to rewrite the Constitution because he does not want to hold an election. I doubt this could happen here, but then, who knows? I am still trying to wrap my head around our presiding malignant narcissist.
May I advise you retired teacher to cease “trying to wrap my head. . . .” It is such a futile exercise, guaranteed to “warp your head”. 🙂
Trump is crazy and getting crazier.
He is on a death march and thinks he’s cool.
However, the Liberal Left gave us ridiculous standards and more stupid testing, charter schools, and yes, even vouchers. So, I blame the Billaries and Obama, too.
Read: Listen Liberal by Thomas Frank.
I also viewed on YouTube Hillary’s commencement speech to the 2017 graduating class of Wesleyan College. Also viewed Bernie’s commencement speech to the 2917 graduates of Brooklyn College. These two commencement speeches are world’s apart. One was elitist; the other not. One spoke to the issues this country faces; the other one was not. Draw your own conclusions.
Thomas Frank voted for Hillary. He admitted it on numerous interview shows while discussing Democrats, the GOP, politics and his latest book, Listen Liberal. Of course Bernie is better than Hillary, no argument there. For that matter, Bernie encouraged us to vote for Hillary once he lost the primary.
“The Civil Rights Issue of Our Time” is a misleading phrase calling for a return to racism and segregation.
THE Civil Rights Issue of our time is the blatant state sanctioned discrimination that using standardized testing obtains. The state should not be in the business of rewarding some students and castigating and punishing others as occurs in the COMPLETELY INVALID standardized testing process. The state is discriminating via innate and natural mental capabilities wherein more than quite a few of the students will never be able to score in the upper half due to factors beyond their control such as SES status, innate mental capabilities, parental involvement, etc. . . . States cannot discriminate via other innate out of the students control such as skin pigmentation levels, gender, disability status, etc. . . .
Why should the state be legally able to discriminate via what is probably the most personal and hallowed characteristic of an individual-their very being through mental activity?????
State sanctioned through the Kremlin’s Agent Orange, that malignant narcissist in the White House, and with support from the malignant cancerous tumor that is the GOP.
Nah, has nothing to do with the SSM and or THE BETSY, she’s just the latest schmoe to occupy that position. I’m talking state sanctioned meaning the states themselves along with the local school boards, administrators and teachers who implement the standardized testing regime.
Off topic- If Bill and Melinda Gates cared about their kids’ future, they could have prevented the election of the dangerous and climate-denying Trump. For example, they could have given each person working in coal, $1 million to leave their jobs, changing the attraction of Trump to voters. The Gates could have funded an alternative to Fox News, or other things that reduce hardships and create an environment of fairness. Instead Bill and Melinda were hell-bent on profit taking from America’s most important common good-public education and profit taking from alternate energy.
Unless the Gates’ kids are like Fred Koch’s, unrelentingly selfish, similar to their parents, I don’t see how the three offspring will survive the damage surrounding the legacy of Bill and Melinda Gates.
This form of deregulation is a sop to the people who voted for Trump. Maybe they won’t notice that their old jobs are not coming back.
A recent comment to the thread in the WaPo article says the Office of Civil Rights within the fed Ed Dept has its own congressionally-appropriated line-itemed budget, implying that it cannot simply be slashed/ rendered ineffectual by the executive branch. The budget is online (about 178million, bumped up 36million from ’16-’17, w/staffing sprcified). Can the Trump admin simply declare 40 employees will be cut via ‘proposed budget’?
Bethree,
I am not sure if OCR can be cut by executive order, but I doubt that Trump would have trouble finding support for slashing civil rights enforcement in the House