In yet another blow to the civil rights of students across the country, the Education Department has continued its rollback in protecting civil rights in education. The New York Times reports that the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has taken a sharp turn away from the procedures and values embraced under the Obama administration.
The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights has begun dismissing hundreds of civil rights complaints under a new protocol that allows investigators to disregard cases that are part of serial filings or that they consider burdensome to the office.
Department officials said the new policy targeted advocates who flooded the office with thousands of complaints for similar violations, jamming its investigation pipeline with cases that could be resolved without exhausting staff and resources. But civil rights advocates worry that the office’s rejection of legitimate claims is the most obvious example to date of its diminishing role in enforcing civil rights laws in the nation’s schools.
They’re going to refuse investigation civil rights violations because it might be too much of a burden for them? What about the burdens of a student who is getting the rights violated during their educational years—one of the most important times of an American’s life?
Under DeVos, OCR is allowed to discriminate against people who file many complaints, which would be a blow to students who are seeking help from experienced advocates. Filing a civil rights complaint with the government impactfully is a special skill and if the agency is more reluctant to open cases from veteran filers, this unfairly penalizes them—and the people they are trying to help.
The department calls the complainants “frequent fliers.”
Marcie Lipsitt is proud to be one of them.
In the last two years, Ms. Lipsitt, a disability rights advocate in Michigan, has filed more than 2,400 complaints with the office against schools, departments of education, colleges and universities, libraries and other educational institutions across the country that have websites that people who are deaf or blind or who struggle with fine motor skills cannot navigate.
“No one even knew about this issue until I started filing,” Ms. Lipsitt said. “I didn’t want to get anybody in trouble. I just wanted to raise awareness.”
These changes have already lead to the dismissal of 500 disability rights complaints. Many more are likely to come.