Got civil rights? If you are an American living under the Trump administration, the answer is a clear and resounding no. Of course, it isn’t much of a surprise that a candidate who campaigned on a message of hatred, bigotry and xenophobia would, now that he’s in office, make sure that he’s rolled back our nation’s civil rights progress by decades. And that’s exactly what he plans on doing. Under its newly proposed budget, the administration plans to get rid of the division of the Labor Department that protects against discrimination among federal contractors—yet another move to systematically reduce the ways the government will protect minority rights, and this extends across the board to several different agencies.
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.
Who cares if minorities actually have access to clean air and water, right? These cuts are conveniently coupled with plans to eliminate housing and community development programs for the poor at Housing and Urban Development (HUD). After all, why make these communities suffer in just one way when can you take away their chances for health, housing and any opportunity for success or equality in multiple ways? Don’t forget about education. Who need civil rights in education anyway? Good thing, because that’s also up for grabs.
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. [...]
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.
And they aren’t done yet. With anti-gay fanatic Mike Pence at Trump’s side, LGBT rights are also ripe for dismantling.
And the administration has reversed several steps taken under President Barack Obama to address LGBT concerns. The Department of Housing and Urban Development, for example, has revoked a rule ensuring that transgender people can stay at sex-segregated shelters of their choice, and the Department of Health and Human Services has removed a question about sexual orientation from two surveys of elderly Americans about services offered or funded by the government.
And in more cruel irony, the administration continues to appoint officials in charge of “protecting” these rights who have a history of doing the exact opposite. The current front-runner to head the civil rights division of the Justice Department is Eric Dreiband. Dreiband is a conservative Washington lawyer and a former official with the Bush administration with a history of representing companies in discrimination lawsuits. He represented Abercrombie & Fitch before the Supreme Court two years ago when they were sued for refusing to hire a young Muslim woman who wore a head scarf, saying that her scarf conflicted with their dress code. So that’s massive cuts to civil rights in labor, education, environment, housing … and we are not even 200 days in. This is exactly what happens when a white supremacist and his friends are allowed to run the country.