Archives for category: Civil Rights
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Betsy DeVos Would Not Deny Federal Funding to a School That Refuses to Admit Child of LGBT Family

By dianeravitch
May 26, 2017 //
29

At her Congressional hearing, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos was asked directly if she would deny federal funding to the Lighthouse Christian zacademy in Bloomington, Indiana, which explicitly bans the enrollment ipof students who are homosexual or who live in a family where homosexual activity is practiced.

“Rep. Katherine Clark, D-Massachusetts, cited Lighthouse Christian Academy’s enrollment brochure, which states that the private school can refuse admission or discontinue enrollment of a student living in a home environment that includes “homosexual or bisexual activity” or “practicing alternate gender identity.”

“The eight-page brochure, titled “Admissions Information and Policies 2017-2018,” can be found on Lighthouse Christian Academy’s website with other admission materials.

“Under a section titled, Biblical Lifestyle, its lists 10 behaviors “prohibited in the Bible,” including “heterosexual activity outside of one man-one-woman marriage;” “homosexual or bisexual activity or any form of sexual immorality;” and “practicing alternate gender identity or any other identity or behavior that violates God’s ordained distinctions between the two sexes, male and female.” Specific Bible verses are cited after each of the 10 behaviors.

“In situations in which the home life violates these standards, LCA reserves the right, within its sole discretion, to refuse admission of an applicant or to discontinue enrollment of a student,” the brochure reads.”

The school currently receives more than $665,000 in state funding under the Indiana voucher program.

DeVos responded.

“The bottom line is we believe that parents are the best equipped to make choices for their children’s schooling and education decisions,” DeVos said, when given a chance to respond to the question uninterrupted. “Too many children today are trapped in schools that don’t work for them. We have to do something different than continuing a top down, one-size-fits all approach. States and local communities are best equipped to make these decisions and framework on behalf of their students.”

The follow-up question should have been whether she would approve funding to a school that enroll students who are of the same religion. The next question should have been whether federal funds could be disbursed to a school that does not admit students who are black.

Are we seeing the abandonment of the federal role as a guarantor of equal rights? Will the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights be handed over to Jeff Sessions? Or will it be led by someone who defends choice over civil rights?

Categories Betsy DeVos, Civil Rights

Jack Covey: The Return of Jim Crow?

By dianeravitch
May 26, 2017 //
30

Reader Jack Covey watched Betsy DeVos testify at a Congressional hearing and was startled by what he saw and heard:

“What’s scary is Secretary Devos’ tacit claim that, when it comes to schools that receive government funding — charter schools, voucher-funded private schools, etc. — the U.S. Department of Ed.:

“— HAS NO RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT STUDENTS FROM DISCRIMINATION — based on race, ethnicity, religion sexual preference, gender identity, etc. — AT THE HANDS OF THOSE RUNNING THOSE GOVERNMENT-FUNDED SCHOOLS.

“— WILL DO NOTHING — provide NO protections, NO assistance in filing a grievance, or any help seeking a remedy (i.e. and amicus brief in any lawsuit) … NO NOTHING, brother — FOR ANY STUDENTS WHO ARE DISCRIMINATED AGAINST BY THOSE IN CHARGE OF CHARTER OR VOUCHER-FUNDED PRIVATE SCHOOLS THAT RECEIVE GOVERNMENT FUNDING. (again, this is discrimination based on race, ethnicity, religion, special ed disability, sexual preference, gender identity, etc.)

“Watch this exchange here between Secretary Devos and Congresswoman Katherine Clark (MA-05):.

Secretary Devos is essentially sending a message to those in charge of those government-funded schools — charter schools, voucher-funded private schools, etc.

“Discriminate against any and all students, based on whatever criteria tbat you see fit, and do so to your heart’s content, and we at the U.S. Department of Ed. will back you all the way.

“What’s that? You say don’t want any blacks at your school? Just feel free to tell any who try to get in, ‘We don’t accept blacks here,’ and if and when those against whom you are discriminating try to fight back, the U.S. Department of Ed. and the Federal Government will just sit back, stay out of it, and do nothing to assist those against whom you are discriminating. We at the U.S. Department of Ed. are givin’ you The Green Light to go ahead with all this.”

“That same Green Light goes DITTO for any other group. race, ethnicity, religion, sexual preference, gender identity, etc.”

“Question: why isn’t this on the cover of every newspaper in the country, the lead story in the network news, etc?

“I mean, Sweet Jesus, the nation’s top Education official has — when it comes to schools getting government funding, such as charter schools and voucher-funded private schools — just announced the de facto reversal of Brown vs. Board of Education, and a century-and-a-half of anti-discrimination civil rights laws and activism.

“Watch it again:

“The Congresswoman is asking Devos if there’s any instance of discrimination that would merit the U..S Department stepping in to assist students who are victims of discrimination, and Devos, in effect, replies, “No, never. We ain’t doin’ jack for them.”

“Secretary Devos’ logic is basically that “Choice trumps everything”, and by that, she means that a black-free school, or a LGBT-free school should be a “choice” that all parents should have, and that taxpayers’ money should be provided to those parents and to those schools to assist in exercising that choice.

“Furthermore, Devos argues that anything that prevents such schools from having free reign to discriminate against certain students — i.e. a government compulsion to accept blacks, or Hispanics, or gays, or Special Ed. kids,or whomever, through, for example, a threatened loss of funding or vouchers — would also simultaneously deprive parents of that no-blacks-allowed, no-whomever-allowed school “choice” and again, “Choice trumps all.”

“This confirms people’s worst fears about Trump — that yes, he is indeed working hand-in-hand with racist elements in the population, or with people who wish to discriminate against anyone for any reason whatsoever — and get taxpayers’ money to fund and carry out such discrimination.”

HOW LOW CAN THEY GO?

Categories Betsy DeVos, Bias, Bigotry, Civil Rights, Injustice, School Choice, Segregation

Watch Rev. William Barber, Our Most Eloquent Spokesman for Civil Rights, Speak at the Schott Foundation Dinner

By dianeravitch
May 13, 2017 //
6

Reverend William Barber II is our most eloquent spokesman for civil rights today. Some believe he is the next Martin Luther King Jr.

He just stepped down as head of the North Carolina NAACP, where he saw daily assaults on voting rights, public schools, and poor people. He started the Moral Mondays Movement, where people witnessed on the steps of the Legislature, which busily enacted laws to strip away the rights of citizens of the state.

He is starting a national organization to fight for a moral vision for America.

He spoke at the Schott Foundation dinner on May 11. Here is his speech. You are in for a treat.

Categories Civil Rights, North Carolina

Rev. Barber Plans to Lead National Movement

By dianeravitch
May 11, 2017 //
15

The inspirational leader Rev. William Barber 11 is stepping down from his post as chair of the North Carolina NAACP to launch a national movement.

http://nypost.com/2017/05/11/naacp-leader-who-led-north-carolina-protest-movement-to-step-down/

His strong voice for moral strength, equal rights, dignity, courage in the face of adversity, and love is needed more than ever today.

Categories Civil Rights, Democracy, Equity, Freedom, Justice

Trump Set to Sign Executive Order Legalizing Discrimination

By dianeravitch
May 3, 2017 //
65

Once again, Trump is set to pander to religious extremists, with an executive order declaring that religious liberty guarantees the right to discriminate against other people. Mike Pence signed a law with the same purposes in Indiana, when he signed a bill called the “Religious Freedom Restoration Act,” but he watered it down when major corporations threatened to leave the state. Now, where will they go if bigotry is legalized everywhere? Strange to see Trump as the champion of the religious right: Trump, the philanderer, Trump, the casino owner, Trump, the man who defrauded thousands of people via his “university.”

Bill Moyers’ website reports:

“Trump may sign a “religious liberty” executive order tomorrow. A draft of this order leaked to The Nation last winter, and journalist Sarah Posner called it a way for the administration to “legalize discrimination,” continuing: “The draft order seeks to create wholesale exemptions for people and organizations who claim religious or moral objections to same-sex marriage, premarital sex, abortion, and trans-identity, and it seeks to curtail women’s access to contraception and abortion through the Affordable Care Act.”

“The backlash gave the administration pause, Politico reports, but a largely unchanged version of the order may be signed tomorrow to celebrate the National Day of Prayer, during which Trump is supposed to meet with religious leaders. “The new draft is being tightly held, but one influential conservative who saw the text said it hasn’t been dialed back much — if at all — since the February leak,” Timothy Alberta and Shane Goldmacher write for Politico.”

From Politico (linked above):

“President Donald Trump has invited conservative leaders to the White House on Thursday for what they expect will be the ceremonial signing of a long-awaited—and highly controversial—executive order on religious liberty, according to multiple people familiar with the situation. Religious “freedom” in this order means the right to refuse service to gay people, who will be considered second-class citizens. Strange to see Trump as the champion of social conservatives, Trump the philanderer, Trump the casino owner, Trump the man not known for his church-going.

“Two senior administration officials confirmed the plan, though one cautioned that it hasn’t yet been finalized, and noted that lawyers are currently reviewing and fine-tuning the draft language. Thursday is the National Day of Prayer, and the White House was already planning to celebrate the occasion with faith leaders.

“The signing would represent a major triumph for Vice President Mike Pence—whose push for religious-freedom legislation backfired mightily when he served as governor of Indiana—and his allies in the conservative movement.

“The original draft order, which would have established broad exemptions for people and groups to claim religious objections under virtually any circumstance, was leaked to The Nation on Feb. 1—the handiwork, many conservatives believed, of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, who have sought to project themselves as friendly to the LGBT community. Liberals blasted the draft order as government-licensed discrimination, and the White House distanced itself from the leaked document in a public statement.

“Pence and a small team of conservative allies quickly began working behind the scenes to revise the language, and in recent weeks have ratcheted up the pressure on Trump to sign it. The new draft is being tightly held, but one influential conservative who saw the text said it hasn’t been dialed back much—if at all—since the February leak. “The language is very, very strong,” the source said.”

Categories Bias, Bigotry, Civil Rights, Trump

James Meredith to Trump: Please Don’t Claim the Mantle of Civil Rights When You Betray Its Purpose

By dianeravitch
May 2, 2017 //
14

In a recent article, civil rights icon James Meredith expressed his frustration with Trump and DeVos claiming that education is “the civil rights issue of our time” and that school choice is the remedy.

He writes:

Today, President Donald Trump and Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos are attempting to improve our schools with “school choice,” vouchers, charter schools, cyber-charters, privatization, putting uncertified “temp teachers” with six weeks training into our highest-needs schools, and shackling public schools to the mass standardized machine-testing of children.

This represents a doubling-down on a quarter-century of failed bipartisan efforts at education reform, few of which have a track record of success, even when measured by the dubious metric of standardized test scores. The achievement claims of Potemkin-style “miracle schools” rarely stand up to serious scrutiny. Education is an exquisitely difficult and complex system, and there are few magic bullets, quick-fixes or shortcuts….

The main problems in American public education are poverty, decades of neglect and segregation of our high-poverty schools, and a system that is today driven not by parents and teachers but by politicians, bureaucrats, ideologues and profiteers with little if any knowledge of how children learn.

The education system has been hijacked by money, much of which is being squandered. We are wasting tens of billions of dollars annually on failed experiments, bloated bureaucracies, unproven and unnecessary technology products, and ineffective teacher professional development. A dystopian culture of constant, pointless, mass standardized machine-testing of children is crippling the schools and students it is supposed to help. The continuation of these trends threatens to hollow out and destroy our urban schools, and pull the rest of the system down with them.

Meredith goes on to explain what children today need, and what would constitute genuine reform in education.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Civil Rights, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization

Jeff Bryant: Betsy DeVos Doesn’t Care About Civil Rights

By dianeravitch
April 21, 2017 //
11

The U.S. Department of Education has been a major force in protecting the civil rights of students and promoting desegregation.

But, writes Jeff Bryant, these issues do not seem to be part of Betsy DeVos’s agenda. Nor are they a high priority for Jeff Sessions at the Justice Department.

He writes:

“So far, Trump’s Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has sent numerous signs she is assembling a staff and laying down a policy mindset that seems indifferent – if not outright averse – to the needs of nonwhite students.

“DeVos has taken the helm of federal education policy at a time when black and brown school children and youth critically need leaders in the federal government to address their needs.

“The number of Latino, African-American, and Asian students in public K-12 schools passed the number of non-Hispanic whites over two years ago. Nevertheless, schools have become more racially segregated than they were 40 years ago.

“The weight of research evidence shows when schools are racially and socioeconomically integrated, all students – even the white kids – benefit academically and in their social and emotional capabilities. Yet, without strong federal leadership, states and local districts generally shirk their responsibilities to enforce school integration.

“Racial segregation is not the only problem nonwhite students confront in schools. Students of color in our nation’s schools are disproportionally more apt to receive out-of-school suspensions than their white peers, which significantly raises their tendency to eventually get entangled in the criminal justice system. A recent report from the Center for Popular Democracy found that in New York City alone these punitive school discipline programs cost the city more than $746 million annually.

“How may we expect a DeVos administration to step up to address these challenges?

“As I reported shortly after her nomination, DeVos has a problematic track record on civil rights, based on her actions in Michigan to promote school choice programs that significantly worsened the state’s racial and socioeconomic segregation of schools.

“In one of her earliest moves as Secretary, DeVos announced her department’s decision to end a federal grant program created during the Obama administration to encourage more diversity in schools. Experts on poverty and race had called her handling of that program “a real test of her commitment to school integration.” She flunked it.

“More alarming is recent news of how many new hires for the education department have a history of making racially offensive comments and expressing controversial opinions on efforts to level the social and economic playing field for African-Americans and other racial minorities.”

Choice promotes segregation by race, religion, and income. The more she sticks to the only script she knows, the more segregated our society will become.

To hear her and Trump speak about education as “the civil rights issue of our time” is to drown in hypocrisy.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Civil Rights, Race, School Choice, Segregation

Steven Singer: DeVos Hires Critic of Civil Rights to Not Protect Civil Rights

By dianeravitch
April 20, 2017 //
20

Each day brings more evidence that the Trump administration intends to roll back the social and political gains of the past 50 years (Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society) and perhaps even FDR’s New Deal.

Betsy DeVos hired lawyer and rightwing activist Candace Jackson as acting assistant secretary in charge of the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights. When DeVos finds a permanent assistant secretary, Jackson will become deputy to that person. All of this maneuvering enables Jackson to avoid Senate confirmation, where even some Republicans might be uncomfortable with her record.

Stephen Singer writes here about Jackson’s opposition to affirmative action and feminism.

Steven Singer says that Jackson’s appointment signals DeVos’s strident belief in the free market. Part of her project is to negate the regulations that protect the civil rights of students. Let the free market sort things out.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Civil Rights

DeVos’ Choice to Lead Civil Rights Office Complained about Affirmative Action

By dianeravitch
April 15, 2017 //
4

ProPublica, which just won a Pulitzer Prize for its investigative reporting, writes here that Betsy DeVos’ choice to lead the crucial Office of Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Education has a curious history for someone in that role. Jackson will run the agency on an acting basis until an Assistant Secretary is chosen. She will eventually be a Deputy Assistant Secretary, which does not require Senate confirmation. Based on her writings, ProPublica describes her as anti-feminist and anti-affirmative action. It is not clear what her definition of civil rights is, and whether they deserve protection.

As an undergraduate studying calculus at Stanford University in the mid-1990s, Candice Jackson “gravitated” toward a section of the class that provided students with extra help on challenging problems, she wrote in a student publication. Then she learned that the section was reserved for minority students.

“I am especially disappointed that the University encourages these and other discriminatory programs,” she wrote in the Stanford Review. “We need to allow each person to define his or her own achievements instead of assuming competence or incompetence based on race.”

Although her limited background in civil rights law makes it difficult to infer her positions on specific issues, Jackson’s writings during and after college suggest she’s likely to steer one of the Education Department’s most important — and controversial — branches in a different direction than her predecessors. A longtime anti-Clinton activist and an outspoken conservative-turned-libertarian, she has denounced feminism and race-based preferences. She’s also written favorably about, and helped edit a book by, an economist who decried both compulsory education and the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Jackson’s inexperience, along with speculation that Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos will roll back civil rights enforcement, lead some observers to wonder whether Jackson, like several other Trump administration appointees, lacks sympathy for the traditional mission of the office she’s been chosen to lead.

Her appointment “doesn’t leave me with a feeling of confidence with where the administration might be going,” said Theodore Shaw, director of the Center for Civil Rights at the University of North Carolina School of Law, who led Barack Obama’s transition team for civil rights at the Department of Justice.

“I hope that she’s not going to be an adversary to the civil rights community and I hope that the administration is going to enforce civil rights laws and represent the best interests of those who are affected by civil rights issues.”

On Wednesday, DeVos formally announced Jackson’s position as deputy assistant secretary in the Office for Civil Rights, a role that does not require Senate confirmation. The 39-year-old attorney will act as assistant secretary in charge of the office until that position is filled. DeVos has not yet selected a nominee, who would have to receive Senate confirmation. As acting head, Jackson is in charge of about 550 full-time department staffers, who are responsible for investigating thousands of civil rights complaints each year.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Civil Rights

Anti-Clinton Zealot Named to Head ED Office of Civil Rights

By dianeravitch
April 3, 2017 //
12

Emma Brown of the Washington Post reports that Candice Jackson has been selected to lead the Office of Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Education. Jackson, a lawyer, gained notoriety for attacking Hillary Clinton for defending a child rapist when she was a public defender many years ago. Public defenders do not choose their cases, and they are expected to defend anyone assigned to them.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2017/04/02/lawyer-who-highlighted-hillary-clintons-role-in-defending-rape-suspect-tapped-for-civil-rights-post-at-education-department/?utm_term=.fa36d0927225

Jackson worked in the Trump campaign. There is no indication that she ever practiced as a civil rights lawyer.

Categories Civil Rights, Clinton, Trump, U.S. Department of Education
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