The Trump administration continues to send the message loud and clear that it sees civil rights as optional. Under the leadership of Jeff Sessions, the Department of Justice seems to be moving away from consent decrees—court-enforced agreements that have historically been used as a tool to protect civil rights by doing such things as reforming police departments, ensuring equal access for minorities and desegregating school systems. Without consent decrees, there is no federal oversight of the changes that these organizations are required to make which means little to no accountability. Sadly, this rollback is not limited to the DOJ. In its most recently proposed budget, Trump’s team proposed massive cuts to civil rights and minority protections in several agencies. This has left employees who work in civil rights divisions across the government wondering what will become of their work and how they will be able to protect the rights of the American people.
All of the internal changes at the DOJ have left attorneys and staff with “a great deal of fear and uncertainty,” [said William Yeomans, a former prosecutor in the division of civil rights]. While he says the lawyers there would like to stay at the department, they fear Sessions’ priorities will have devastating impact on their work.
The DOJ’s civil rights office is not alone in fearing rollbacks in enforcement. Across federal departments, the Trump administration has made moves to diminish the power of civil rights divisions.
None of this is particularly surprising but it is dangerous and frightening. The Department of Education has also crystallized its plans for a newer and less than robust approach to civil rights enforcement. In a June 8 memo to its employees, the department laid out new guidance for investigating complaints. Previous requirements enabled broader probes to determine whether or not complaints were a part of a larger pattern of systemic discrimination or harassment. Now that’s optional.
The office will apply the broader approach “only” if the original allegations raise systemic concerns or the investigative team argues for it, [Candice Jackson, the acting assistant secretary for civil rights] wrote in the memo.
As part of the new approach, the Education Department will no longer require civil rights investigators to obtain three years of complaint data from a specific school or district to assess compliance with civil rights law. [...]
The department’s new directive also gives more autonomy to regional offices, no longer requiring oversight or review of some cases by department headquarters, according to the memo.
You may recall that Candice Jackson, the person who is now in charge of civil rights at the Education Department, has absolutely zero qualifications for being there. She has no background in civil rights law, she believes that feminism does not help the progress of women and, as a white woman, claims that she was once the victim of reverse discrimination when she was a student at Stanford University. She’s even less qualified than Betsy DeVos to be in the field of education. But isn’t this exactly what Trump and his friends want to do to civil rights? Whittle them down to nothing? Under Betsy’s watch at the Education Department, that’s what poised to happen.
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has also proposed cutting over 40 positions from the civil rights office. With reduced staff, the office will have to “make difficult choices, including cutting back on initiating proactive investigations,” according to the department’s proposed budget.
So if you are keeping count, this now totals proposed or actual cuts to civil rights programs at the Department of Labor (no protection against discrimination among federal contractors and a proposal to eliminate the office that handles discrimination complaints), Environmental Protection Agency (elimination of the environmental justice program), Housing and Urban Development (reversal of a rule ensuring that transgender people can stay at sex-segregated shelters of their choice) and the Department of Education. And those are the only the ones that we can keep track of. Make no mistake about it, this administration could care less if our rights are protected. We already knew this but they are blatantly obvious about making sure we know it.