Archives for category: Civil Rights
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Trump Names Anti-LGBT Activist to Head Office of Civil Rights at HHS

By dianeravitch
March 27, 2017 //
15

The Trump administration continues to stack the federal government with radical right wing extremists.

ProPublica reports that Roger Severino of the Heritage Foundation will head the Office of Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services.

In addition to opposing the rights of transgender people, Severino oppose marriage equality and public funding of Planned Parenthood.

“The Trump administration has quietly appointed a Heritage Foundation staffer who has railed against civil rights protections for transgender patients as director of the federal agency charged with protecting the civil rights of all patients.

“Though the administration did not issue a formal announcement, Roger Severino is now listed on the website of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as director of the Office for Civil Rights. His prior position was as director of the DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at the Heritage Foundation, where he focused on “religious liberty, marriage and life issues.” (The DeVos Center is named for the in-laws of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.)

“The civil rights office is in charge of enforcing patient privacy protections and ensuring that patients’ civil rights are protected, that they are free from discrimination and that they have access to services such as interpreters.

“Asked for comment, HHS forwarded a link to Severino’s title and biography. In a statement, Heritage spokeswoman Marguerite Bowling said, “Roger Severino has a distinguished record of fighting for the civil rights and freedoms of all Americans. We have no doubt that Roger in his new role at HHS will protect the civil rights of all Americans.”

“Severino’s position does not require Senate confirmation.

“Based on his prior writings, Severino will likely take the agency in a different direction than it had under the Obama administration. Last year, the agency issued rules banning discrimination against transgender patients, carrying out provisions of the Affordable Care Act. (A federal judge put those rules on hold on Dec. 31, siding with a Catholic hospital system, other religious health providers and five states that challenged them. The Trump administration has not sought to overturn the injunction.)

“When those rules were proposed, Severino and a Heritage colleague wrote a scathing critique, saying they jeopardized the religious liberty and freedom of conscience of health care providers.

“By prohibiting differential treatment on the basis of ‘gender identity’ in health services, these regulations propose to penalize medical professionals and health care organizations that, as a matter of faith, moral conviction, or professional medical judgment, believe that maleness and femaleness are biological realities to be respected and affirmed, not altered or treated as diseases,” Severino wrote with colleague Ryan Anderson.

“In a column for the conservative website Daily Signal, Severino and Anderson wrote that the HHS rule would force doctors to perform sex reassignment surgeries. “They would effectively require controversial procedures, such as ‘sex-reassignment’ surgery, that respected medical professionals argue have not been proven effective in treating serious mental health conditions.”

“Despite the column’s assertions, federal rules cannot force doctors to perform procedures for which they are not trained or competent. Moreover, professional societies support coverage for gender transition treatments….

“A coalition of progressive groups criticized Severino’s appointment.

“I could not think of a more dangerous person to head up the Office of Civil Rights at HHS,” JoDee Winterhof, senior vice president of policy and political affairs of the Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement. “Once again, Donald Trump is declaring war against our community by appointing anti-LGBTQ people at all levels of his administration.”

“The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights also expressed its dismay. “This appointment, made without fanfare, is part of disturbing trend by the Trump administration of naming people who disagree or outright oppose the mission or role of an agency or office to leadership positions within those entities,” the group said in a statement.”

Categories Civil Rights, Trump

US Postal Service Honors Civil Rights Hero Dorothy Height

By dianeravitch
March 18, 2017 //
4

Read about this great civil rights icon here:

https://about.usps.com/news/national-releases/2017/pr17_006.htm

President Bill Clinton awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.

Here is a question for you, dear readers:

To whom will Trump award the Presidential Medal of Freedom?

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Postal Service today kicked off this year’s Black History Month observances by dedicating the Dorothy Height Forever stamp during a ceremony at Howard University.

The 40th stamp in the Black Heritage series honors Height, a tireless activist, who dedicated her life to fighting for racial and gender equality. She became one of the most influential civil and women’s rights leaders of the 20th century.

“The Postal Service is proud to honor civil rights icon Dorothy Height, an American treasure, whose illustrious career spanned almost a century,” said Ronald Stroman, deputy postmaster general and chief government relations officer, who dedicated the stamp.

“The Dorothy Height Forever stamp will serve as a lasting tribute to her life and legacy of seeking equality and justice for all Americans, regardless of ethnicity, gender or race.”
Stroman was joined at the stamp dedication ceremony by U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-GA); Alexis Herman, president, Dorothy I. Height Education Foundation; Ingrid Saunders Jones, chair, National Council of Negro Women; Naima Randolph, Dorothy Height’s great niece; Wayne A.I. Frederick, president, Howard University; and Bishop Vashti McKenzie of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

The Dorothy Height stamp features artist Thomas Blackshear II’s, portrait of Height. The painting is based on a photograph shot by Lateef Mangum in 2009. Art director Derry Noyes designed the stamp.

In 1963, the Height-led National Council of Negro Women joined the Council for United Civil Rights Leadership. Height was an architect of the August 1963 March on Washington, where she shared the stage with Martin Luther King Jr. It was Height who pushed to include a voice of youth like John Lewis of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and insisted on no time limits for King’s speech.

Gender equality also was important to Height, who fought for the rights of women, particularly women of color. President John F. Kennedy named her to his Commission on the Status of Women, which was chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt. Height attended the 1963 White House ceremony where Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act. In 1971, she helped form the National Women’s Political Caucus.

In 1977, Height officially retired from the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), for which she worked for 40 years. In addition to numerous honorary degrees, Height received the nation’s two highest civilian honors. In 1994, President Bill Clinton awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom. A decade later, President George W. Bush presented her with the Congressional Gold Medal. In 2009, she was a guest of Barack Obama when he was sworn in as the nation’s 44th president.

Categories Civil Rights, Education Reform

Wendy Lecker: Betsy DeVos Pushing Charter Schools as the “Gateway Drug” to Privatization

By dianeravitch
March 14, 2017 //
13

Wendy Lecker is a civil rights attorney who writes often for Connecticut newspapers. I did not see this column when it first appeared, but think it is worth reading now. Locker was first to use the term “gateway drug” to describe charters, meaning that they are the seemingly benign but insidious first step towards privatization of public schools.

She writes:


Betsy DeVos’ nomination brings to the fore some important truths about charter schools. Charter schools are part of a larger strategy to privatize and eliminate public schools. The slogan that charters and choice are part of a “civil rights” agenda is propaganda originating from ultra-conservative white Christian activists disguising their true aims.

In reality, choice in the form of charters increases segregation and devastates community public schools in our most distressed cities. As charters have proliferated in predominately minority cities, children and parents of color bear the brunt of this destruction.

To describe the proliferation of charter schools and vouchers as “the civil rights issue of our time” is both hypocritical and cynical. To see the utter failure of charters to address the needs of children of color, one need look no further than Detroit, awash in charters that have been a diversion from the consequences of structural racism and deindustrialization. Promises aplenty, but no help for the city’s neediest families and students, whose public schools and communities have been gutted by competition with ineffective charter schools.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Corporate Reformers, Detroit

Leonie Haimson: Dropping the ESSA regulations is No Big Deal

By dianeravitch
March 13, 2017 //
10

Leonie Haimson explains here the significance–or lack thereof–of the Senate’s decision to kill former Secretary of Education John King’s highly prescriptive regulations to implement the 2015 federal law called Every Student Succeeds Act.

There were some who reacted with joy to see the King regs killed. King was known for his love of high-stakes testing.

Others worried whether the death of the regs meant that the states would be free to ignore the neediest kids because of the withdrawal of federal oversight.

I worked in the U.S. Department of Education for two years. What I learned is there are very few educators who work for ED.

The Feds have two important roles:

1. Supplying extra money for equity purposes

2. Protecting the civil rights of children

The federal government has zero capacity to direct or measure academic quality.

The people who work in the Department of Education are clerks, not educators.

THE ED has no capacity whatever to assure or ascertain quality of education. Very few people who work there have a view about what education is or should be. That is not their job. Most have worked for ED for many years, regardless of which party is in power. They do not express their views. They do their job. They write checks, collect data, review contracts. They can tell you how many students are served in which programs. They can determine how much money is allocated and spent. The Department consists of clerks and bureaucrats. I was there. Nothing has changed. Educators are in schools, not at the U.S. Department of Education.

Categories Accountability, Civil Rights, Education Reform, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Funding, Testing, U.S. Department of Education

Trump Administration Mulling Religious Exemptions to Permit Discrimination against LGBT

By dianeravitch
February 3, 2017 //
76

The Washington Post (and also The Nation) obtained a leaked draft of a plan to allow individuals, organizations, and businesses to opt out of federal regulations on religious grounds. Critics say this would permit discrimination against LGBT persons. This would implement the controversial “Religious Freedom Restoration Act” that Mike Pence tried to enact in Indiana and was forced to withdraw when major corporations threatened to leave the state.

President Trump is considering how to allow Americans to opt out of complying with federal policies and regulations on the grounds of religion, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Thursday, a move that critics said could open the door to discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender or gender identity.


“There’s clearly a lot of evidence in the last couple of years of the government coming in with regulations and policies that have, frankly, denied people the ability to live according to their faith,” Spicer said during his daily briefing. “People should be able to practice their religion, express their religion, express areas of their faith without reprisal. And I think that pendulum sometimes swings the other way, in the name of political correctness.”

”Spicer’s comments, which came on the same day Trump told the audience at the National Prayer Breakfast that his administration “will do everything possible to defend and protect religious liberty in our land,” could signal a sea change in how the federal government balances protections for gay, transgender and reproductive rights against individuals’ religious objections.


“Administration officials are considering a proposed executive order, a draft of which was obtained by The Washington Post, that would provide individuals and organizations wide latitude in denying services, employment and other benefits on the basis of their religious beliefs, though Spicer emphasized that Trump had no immediate plans to issue a directive on the issue.
“There are a lot of ideas that are being floated out,” he said. “But until the president makes up his mind and gives feedback and decides that that’s final, there’s nothing to announce.

”
The proposal, titled “Establishing a Government-Wide Initiative to Respect Religious Freedom,” is one of several dozen draft directives written on a range of topics by people within the administration, on the transition team or working for outside groups.
Trump did not discuss any specific actions he might take at the National Prayer breakfast, but said: “Freedom of religion is a sacred right, but it is also a right under threat all around us.”


“In the event that the order is actually issued, multiple groups are already preparing to challenge it on the grounds that it effectively sanctions discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans, women and minorities.”

Categories Civil Rights, Education Reform

New Study: Vouchers Enable Discrimination and Segregation

By dianeravitch
January 31, 2017 //
13

Steve Hinnefeld posts a blog about a new study of vouchers showing that voucher schools encourage and practice discrimination.

Study confirms voucher programs discriminate

“Research led by an Indiana University professor confirms what school voucher critics have long argued: Voucher programs receive public funding yet discriminate on the basis of religion, disability status, sexual orientation and possibly other factors.

“The finding is especially timely as President Donald Trump and his designee to serve as secretary of education, Michigan school-choice activist Betsy DeVos, have indicated they will use federal clout and money to push states to expand voucher programs.

“At the time we did the study, we had no idea it would be so relevant,” said Suzanne Eckes, professor in the IU School of Education and the lead author of the research paper. “People are starting to think about these questions, and the topic has not been widely addressed in research.”

“The study, “Dollars to Discriminate: The (Un)intended Consequences of School Vouchers,”was published last summer in the Peabody Journal of Education. Co-authors are Julie Mead, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Jessica Ulm, a doctoral student at IU.

“The researchers examined 25 programs in 15 states and Washington, D.C., that provide public funding for private K-12 schools, including traditional tuition voucher programs and voucher-like programs called education savings accounts. Indiana is one of seven states with a statewide voucher program. Other programs are limited to cities (Milwaukee, Cleveland) or special-needs students.

“The authors say legislators who authorized the programs neglected to write policies that provide equal access for students and avoid discriminating against marginalized groups.

“We argue that each state has an obligation to ensure that any benefit it creates must be available to all students on a non-discriminatory basic — including the benefit of a publicly funded voucher for attendance at a private school,” they write.

“Indiana’s school voucher program, established in 2011, served 32,686 students who attended 316 private schools last year. Nearly all voucher schools are Christian schools, including Catholic, Lutheran and Evangelical or non-denominational schools. The state spent $131 million on vouchers but provided almost no fiscal oversight, according to a report by the IU Center for Evaluation and Education Policy.

“Indiana law bars voucher schools from discriminating on the basis of race, color or national origin. But state law doesn’t mention discrimination by religion, disability or sexual orientation.

“Voucher schools in Indiana can receive extra state money for enrolling special-needs students. But some of the schools have language on their websites that suggests they may not admit students with disabilities – or that they will provide only limited accommodations for students.

“As the study notes, citing a 2014 Bloomington Herald-Times article, some Indiana Christian schools that receive vouchers welcome only families that embrace their religious beliefs, including a rejection of a “gay/lesbian lifestyle” that is “contrary to God’s commands.”

Categories Bias, Bigotry, Civil Rights, Vouchers

DeVos Pushing More Public School Closings, But Only African American Schools Are Targeted

By dianeravitch
January 29, 2017 //
45

The following article was sent to me by education researchers Russ Bellant and M. Denise Baldwin. Baldwin is a former teacher in Saginaw. Recently, I was on an NPR program hosted by Warren Olney with three other people, one of whom spoke on behalf of Betsy DeVos’s American Federation for Children. He insisted that not a single public school in Detroit had ever been closed. This article says that the number of public schools closed in Detroit over the past 20 years is nearly 200, with more school closings ahead, all in African American communities. Meanwhile the Detroit Free Press published an article showing that the closure of neighborhood schools–DeVos’s goal–means less choice for black residents, who no longer have a school they can walk to or transportation to schools of “choice.”

DeVos leads push for school closings, only African American schools targeted

By Russ Bellant and M. Denise Baldwin

When Michigan Governor Rick Snyder concluded that a new law that restructured Detroit Public Schools prohibited school closures until 2019, the DeVos network reacted immediately, demanding closures of Detroit schools. They enlisted elected officials who had received campaign contributions from the DeVos apparatus. Now the Governor has backed down, despite considerable legal muscle that agreed with his interpretation.

In a shocking move, the Governor has proposed the closing of 38 schools across the state, including 24 Detroit public schools (and one Detroit charter). But an examination of the list shows a disturbing pattern: all of them serve primarily African American populations.

The DeVos entity that speaks to education issues in the state, Great Lakes Education Project (GLEP), quickly demanded that all 38 be shut down. They ignore the reality that in one part of Detroit, it would close all the area high schools and abandon K-8 education in a large area of the City. More fundamentally, they ignore the fact that they are accelerating separate and unequal education in Michigan.

GLEP, which was set up and has been primarily funded by Dick and Betsy DeVos, has been aggressive in advocating the shutting down of public schools and replacing them with charters. The charters, in turn, have been seen as a base to get electoral support for vouchers, according to plans formulated in the mid-1990s. An amendment to the Michigan Constitution to permit vouchers was put on the ballot by the DeVos family in 2000, but it was soundly defeated.

Undeterred, the DeVos machine continues their plan to charterize Michigan public schools with no caps or accountability mandated. The charters, some placed by DeVos allies, are set up primarily in communities of color. Eighty percent are for-profit corporations, according to a Western Michigan University study. They average a thousand dollars profit off each student, out of a state foundation of just over $7,000 per student.

White school districts have been more resistant to state intervention when school performance is an issue, and it gets more attention. But when Black schools are targeted, there is less statewide concern, so they are seen as a path of least resistance for charterizers.

DeVos has directly used her political muscle to take a highly rated Detroit aeronautics high school and have a state subsidy for that school transferred to a DeVos-created charter high school in west Michigan. They also took the Detroit curriculum as their own. The West Michigan Aviation Academy says that the school was an inspiration of Betsy DeVos.

It remains to be seen how much the Michigan public will tolerate the dismantling of their districts. One school that is in an otherwise majority white district plans a determined resistance to the state closing plan. The East Detroit Public Schools, in a county that voted for Trump, has on its website a statement from its Superintendent that “We have no intention of allowing the SRO (from the Governor’s office-RB) to dictate the future of our students.” A school board member added that “East Detroit Public Schools will not accept the closure of any of the District’s schools by the state and will not allow the SRO to intervene at this point in our plans. School closures hurt children.”

The state is also facing lawsuits over its destruction of public schools and educational quality. They have directly controlled the Detroit schools for the last eight years and 15 of the last 18 years. Their citation of academic shortcomings they created as justification of the closings is really an indictment of state control, a subject they avoid.

The state has also dismantled four school districts across the state. All were African-American communities. Currently three of the proposed schools for closure in Saginaw and in Bridgeport-Spaulding Public Schools serve students who were displaced when their home district, Buena Vista, was dissolved. The proposed closings would subject hundreds of students to two major school dislocations.

Detroit is the model of proving that mass closures only put districts in a downward spiral. In the last 13 years 172 district schools (61%) have been closed, mostly by the state, in response to state-created debt and academic performance. Another 15 were taken and turned into the Governor’s personal school district. Closings have lead to abusive charterization and neighborhood abandonment. If closures were the solution, Detroit would be the Harvard of K-12 education.

There is a likely legal challenge to the DeVos-led dismantling of public education based on impact disparities on African American communities. DeVos has shown no reluctance to exploit this vulnerability in our social fabric as she seeks a world of profit-driven charters and vouchers that undermine over a half-century of educational progress.

Categories Betsy DeVos, Civil Rights, Closing schools, Detroit, Michigan

An Interview with Julian Vasquez Heilig: Charter Schools Don’t Serve Black Children Well

By dianeravitch
January 26, 2017 //
15

Joan Richardson of Phi Delta Kappan interviews scholar Julian Vasquez Heilig about opposition to charter schools by the NAACP and other civil rights groups.

 

He explains that the Trump administration will try to destroy public education:

 

 

With a Trump administration, this (NAACP) resolution has more importance than ever before because he’s said that he’s going to pump billions of dollars into charter schools and vouchers, which are really partner market-based school choice approaches.

 

It’s also important because DeVos’s view of what a charter school means is antithetical to what many “education reformers” support. Trump is supporting forms of parent choice and privatization that are beyond what even the Democratic education “reformers” have been supporting. So it remains to be seen if the reformers move toward Trump or if they continue with their argument that there are some good charters but that these other forms of market-based choice are not desirable.

 

Charters have not satiated the privatization and private-control proponents. In fact, it has become readily apparent that charter schools were just the initiation of the conversation for private control and privatization in other forms such as vouchers.

 

Trump’s election may turn the tide in favor of private control and privatization of public education. Donald Trump promised in the campaign that his administration would pass the School Choice and Education Opportunity Act and perhaps spend billions on school choice in the first 100 days. So while the NAACP and many in the civil rights community may be supporting community-based, democratically controlled education, the bully pulpit of the presidency may enforce a new era of private control and privatization of the public education system.

Categories Accountability, Betsy DeVos, Charter Schools, Civil Rights, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Vouchers

Trump Picks Lawyer Who Defends Republicans on Voter Suppression Cases to Lead Civil Rights Division

By dianeravitch
January 23, 2017 //
39

Trump selected John Gore, a lawyer who has defended many Republican states that passed restrictions on voting rights as the new deputy assistant attorney general in charge of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department.

 

Gore does boast some expertise in civil-rights litigation — specifically, he has considerable experience defending the Republican Party against allegations that its voting laws violate civil rights.

 

As BuzzFeed notes, Gore defended controversial redistricting plans pushed by Republicans in Florida, New York, and South Carolina in 2012.

 

He also defended Florida governor Rick Scott’s attempt to purge his state’s voting rolls of non-citizens, shortly before the 2012 election. A federal court later ruled that Scott’s measure had violated the National Voter Registration Act, as it purged many legal voters from the rolls, most of whom happened to belong to left-leaning constituencies.

 

Don’t expect vigorous enforcement of civil rights laws in the next four years. Don’t expect any enforcement of civil rights laws, and you won’t be disappointed.

Categories Civil Rights, Trump

North Carolina’s Exclusionary Voucher Schools

By dianeravitch
January 15, 2017 //
35

‪https://tcf.org/content/commentary/second-class-students-vouchers-exclude/‬

 

Kimberly Quick of The Century Foundation describes the many exclusionary policies of North Carolina’s voucher schools.

 

Here is a sampling:

 

Conservative education reformers have aggressively marketed the expansion of K–12 private school voucher programs as a method to increase access to educational options. Their arguments begin to break down, however, when asking the questions, Access for whom? And to what?

 

The types of voucher-centered school choice schemes promoted by both President-elect Trump and Betsy DeVos, his nominee for U.S. Secretary of Education (ED), like most programs in education policy, are administered by states and localities. Trump’s open denigration of the Department of Education’s civil rights and standards oversight functions further indicate that a DeVos ED will place few stipulations on how states receiving federal funds for vouchers must design and implement those programs.

 

Some of those voucher programs might look something like the highly discriminatory North Carolina Opportunity Scholarship Act. Established by the state legislature in 2013, the program offers low-income and working-class families state-funded tuition scholarships to private schools of up to $4,200. In some ways, the Opportunity Scholarship might seem innocuous. Private schools receiving state funds are required to test scholarship recipients (though notably not with state tests for direct comparison, and there is virtually no obligation for public disclosure), and most students must have spent time in public schools prior to private school enrollment to be eligible—conditions that are missing in other programs in states like Indiana and Wisconsin. But even the quickest examination of the types of schools taking taxpayer money reveals that state dollars are, in actuality, too often funding discrimination.

 

An overwhelming number of the more than 400 private schools registered in the program are religiously affiliated. Although a divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled that vouchers used for religious school attendance do not violate the establishment clause, the primary issue with North Carolina’s program is not that the schools themselves are religious, but that too many condition admission and retention on dogmatic adherence to specific religious doctrine, usually excluding those who are LGBTQ or come from non-churchgoing families.

 
Religious and LGBTQ Discrimination

 

Alamance Christian School (ACS) received $121,132 in public voucher funds during the 2015–2016 academic year, all while maintaining an official, publically available admissions policy that explicitly bars all faiths outside of Christianity, along with children from families that are “Catholic, Mormon, Jehovah’s Witness, Seventh Day Adventist, Christian Science” and more. To confirm that they are from the “right” type of Christian family, children seeking admission must produce a pastoral reference. Then, before enrolling, all middle and high school students are expected to sign a commitment form pledging to refrain from “homosexual/bisexual behaviors, or any other biblical violation of the unique roles of males and females.”

 

And ACS is not some random oversight, a school hiding out within the list of eligibles despite a uniquely restrictive profile. Instead, it reflects the biases of several other schools that are partially funded by the dollars of taxpayers, some of whom aren’t allowed to send their children to those very institutions. For instance, one of the schools receiving the most public money, Fayetteville Christian School (receiving more than $285,000 in 2015–2016) has near identical restrictions, requiring regular church attendance of applicants and parents, issuing the following statement on their website:

 

“The student and at least one parent with whom the student resides must be in full agreement with the FCS Statement of Faith and have received Jesus Christ as their Savior. In addition, the parent and student must regularly fellowship in a local faith based, Bible believing church. Accordingly, FCS will not admit families that belong to or express faith in non-Christian religions such as, but not limited to: Mormons (LDS Church), Jehovah’s Witnesses, Muslims (Islam), non-Messianic Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, etc. Accordingly, FCS will not admit families that engage in illegal drug use, sexual promiscuity, homosexuality (LGBT) or other behaviors that Scripture defines as deviate and perverted. Once admitted, if the student or parent/guardian with whom the student resides becomes involved in any of the above activities it will be grounds for dismissal of the student/family from the school. (Also see pages 9 and 28 of the Student Handbook)”

 

At Raleigh Christian Academy, which collected about $233,000 in state money through the voucher program, the administration mandates that “no young man do anything which might detract from his masculinity,” calling anything other than that narrowly and vaguely defined masculine ideal “an abomination before God.” The school also reminds its female students that “Satan desires to take away from a lady’s feminine qualities.” Not only are the identities of gender non-conforming and other LGBTQ students under attack in many “Opportunity” schools, these students—along with straight student whose families fail to conform to specific religious doctrine—have abridged options, even as their parents pay tax dollars to a state that rubber stamps their exclusion.

 

Read on for more reasons to keep the unwanted out.

 

Will DeVos require non-discrinatory admissions to religious schools? Don’t count on it.

Categories Bias, Civil Rights, North Carolina, Vouchers
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