The Women’s Law Project proudly signed a letter asking the Trump Administration to help protect vulnerable students by preserving a 2014 guidance that emphasized treating all children fairly, regardless of race and other factors.
In 2014, the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights and the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division issued a joint guidance to assist public elementary and secondary schools in meeting their obligations under federal law to administer student discipline without discriminating on the basis of race, color, or national origin.
The guidance was issued after the Office for Civil Rights collected data that revealed stark disparities in discipline by race and other factors. For example, they found that African-American students are more than three times as likely as their white peers to be expelled or suspended. This research echoed previous findings.
In 2016, with assistance from the FISA Foundation and the Heinz Endowments, we worked on a report that examined racial and gender disparities in discipline of students in Allegheny County. The report, Inequities Affecting Black Girls in Pittsburgh and Allegheny County, highlighted the fact that Black girls in Pittsburgh are more than three times as likely as White girls to be suspended from school.
Now, in the wake of a tragic school shooting in Parkland, Florida, the White House announced a new Federal Commission on School Safety chaired by Secretary Betsy DeVos to recommend policies for school violence prevention—which nonsensically includes repealing guidances about preventing discrimination of Black students and other marginalized children.
Kids need these protections. Rescinding guidances on preventing discrimination in school discipline will not make schools safer for any students, and may endanger the students the guidances were issued to protect.
From the letter to DeVos:
The 2014 guidance clarifies that the U.S. Department of Education expects that schools and districts are treating all children fairly and provides practical tools and guidelines for educators to create safe, supportive, and welcoming environments for all students. Rescinding the guidance would send the opposite message: that the Department does not care that schools are discriminating against children of color by disproportionately kicking them out of school and that the Department does not see itself as having a role in helping educators create and maintain safe schools that afford all students equal educational opportunities.
Suspensions and expulsions, which are practices that remove a child from school temporarily or permanently in response to alleged misbehavior, are used too often in our schools and disproportionately against children of color, children with disabilities, and LGBTQ youth. Researchers estimate that suspensions, most of which are for minor behaviors, result in tens of millions of days of lost instruction. For more than 40 years, this problem has been documented and described by researchers, [the Department of Education], children, educators, and community advocates.
The Trump Administration has already rescinded guidances related to protecting the rights of transgender students, students with disabilities, and students who have been victims of sexual violence.
Read the rest of the letter here.
The Women’s Law Project is a public interest law center in Pennsylvania devoted to advancing the rights of women and girls.
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