Memo lays out Trump administrations approach to handling transgender students civil rights complai

Source: Washington Post

Memo lays out Trump administrations approach to handling transgender students civil rights complaints

By Emma Brown June 16 at 2:43 PM

The Education Departments Office for Civil Rights has directed its lawyers to consider transgender students discrimination complaints on a case-by-case basis, according to an internal memo (1) obtained by The Washington Post, which makes clear that lawyers may decide to dismiss complaints related to the polarizing issue of transgender students access to school bathrooms.

Candice Jackson, acting head of the civil rights office, said she sent the memo to clarify that transgender students may still have valid discrimination complaints even though the Trump administration withdrew guidance specifying that they have a right under federal law to use school bathroom and locker room facilities corresponding to their gender identity.

It was very important to the secretary and to myself that our investigators not make the mistake of assuming that just because that particular guidance has been rescinded, that all complaints filed by transgender students are going to be dismissed, Jackson said in an interview Friday. We wanted to very carefully explain in written format to our field that every investigator assigned to one of these cases needs to go through and individually examine every complaint, and actively search for ways that OCR can retain jurisdiction over the complaint.
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The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights on Friday voted to initiate a two-year investigation of federal civil rights enforcement, a response to what the commission said was its deep concern about the Trump administrations proposed budget and staffing cuts to civil rights offices and efforts across multiple federal agencies, including the Education Department.
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Emma Brown writes about national education and about people with a stake in schools, including teachers, parents and kids. Follow @emmersbrown

(1) http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/local/trump-administrations-guidance-to-office-for-civil-rights-on-transgender-student-complaints/2474/

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2017/06/16/education-department-memo-lays-out-trump-administrations-approach-to-handling-transgender-students-civil-rights-complaints/

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See a separate thread in LBN regarding the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights:

Commission on Civil Rights to probe Trump administration's handling of civil rights
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10141801142