Education Department to Open Civil Rights Probe into UC Berkeley Allegedly Banning White People from Farm

University of California Berkeley Campus

“We envision a vibrant community farm, a model of shared governance and co-stewardship that helps restore community resilience,” the farm’s website reads.

The Department of Education is looking into an allegation that the University of California at Berkeley is prohibiting white residents from using a community farm on Saturdays.

Read More

Biden Mandates A.I. Advance ‘Equity and Civil Rights’

President Joe Biden has signed an executive order requiring that Artificial Intelligence technology advance “equity and civil rights.”

Biden signed the order this week, putting more regulatory guidance in place for A.I., a rapidly developing technology that some experts warn could be used for harm for everyday Americans.

Read More

Former Memphis Officers Federally Indicted in Tyre Nichols’ Death; Still Silence on ‘Vendetta’ Allegations

If Tyre Nichols was targeted by members of a Memphis Police Department violent crime unit because of his alleged involvement with one of the officers’ ex-wives, there’s nothing on the subject included in a new federal indictment against the five former law enforcement officials.

Read More

Harvard Facing New Civil Rights Complaints After Affirmative Action Ruling

Following a landmark ruling from the Supreme Court effectively ending the practice of race-based preferences in college admissions, Harvard University is facing new civil rights challenges over its practice of legacy admissions.

As reported by The Hill, the Ivy League university is now facing complaints from the Lawyers for Civil Rights (LCR), a left-wing group representing black and Hispanic groups based in the New England area. LCR’s complaint claims that “each year, Harvard College grants special preference in its admissions process to hundreds of mostly White students — not because of anything they have accomplished, but rather solely because of who their relatives are.”

Read More

Commentary: Conservatives Cannot Afford to Stay Cowed Any Longer

A federal court ruling likely to drop this month should provide a good indication as to whether America still has a fully functioning First World justice system. The case, involving an investigation from New York Attorney General Letitia James into the supposed mismanagement of controversial news outlet VDare.com, has received zero media coverage so far, despite it being as crude, brutish, and nakedly political as James’ other lawfare campaigns (notably against former President Trump and the NRA). In fact, it’s arguably worse, as it was clearly designed to dox VDare’s writers and volunteers and bankrupt the tiny outlet out of existence.

Read More

Civil Rights Commissioner Warns House Judiciary Committee of Biden’s ‘Trojan Horse’ Radical Equity Executive Order

A member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has written to Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan (R), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, warning that Joe Biden’s sweeping executive order embedding radical woke equity ideology in all agencies of the executive branch is a “Trojan Horse” that represents “a major step toward socialism.”

Read More

Victor Davis Hanson Commentary: Identity Politics Absurdities and the Ridiculousness of Reparations

The last time racial reparations made the major news was on the eve of September 11, 2001 attacks. The loss of 3,000 Americans, which for a time fueled a new national unity, quickly dispelled the absurdities of the reparation movement, and turned our attention toward more existential issues. Now the idea is back in vogue again. Here are 10 reasons why the nation’s—and especially California’s—discussions of reparatory payouts are dangerous in a multiracial state, and why reparations are not viable either in an insolvent state or a bankrupt nation at large.

Read More

Calls Grow Among Prominent Figures to Create a New ‘Church Committee’ to Probe FBI Abuses

A half century ago, Americans held grave concerns that J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI and other U.S. intelligence agencies had abused civil rights, improperly targeted enemies and illegally gathered evidence, so Congress set out on a great cleansing mission. It formed a special committee chaired by Idaho Sen. Frank Church that laid bare the wrongdoing, overhauled the bureau and created new guardrails to protect civil liberties.

Read More

Christian Group Sues Michigan Attorney General over Civil Rights Interpretation

A Christian health care group says that Michigan’s recently reinterpreted civil rights law relating to sexual orientation and gender identity violates its constitutional right to religion.

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys representing Christian Healthcare Centers, a Michigan faith-based medical nonprofit, sued Attorney General Dana Nessel, who’s responsible for enforcing Michigan’s civil rights law. In June, state courts reinterpreted state law to include sexual orientation and gender identity.

Read More

Civil Rights Experts Challenge Google Fellowship’s Race-Based Requirements

A fellowship hosted by Big Tech giant Google is facing heavy legal criticism due to its use of racial quotas, which critics say are unconstitutional.

Newsbusters reports that the prestigious fellowship, which offers $100,000 to students pursuing their doctorate in computer studies, requires that a certain number of students nominated for the fellowship by their university must be non-White.

Read More

Biden Plan to Restore Obamacare’s Protection of Transgender Rights in Federal Healthcare Programs Poised to Stoke Religious Freedom Lawsuits

The Biden administration will once again sow its seeds of division by proposing a rule to “protect” those claiming “gender identity” discrimination in federal healthcare programs, a move that is expected to generate religious freedom disputes.

The Biden Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced Monday its proposed rule will implement Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) to affirm that “protections against discrimination on the basis of sex, including sexual orientation and gender identity” are “consistent with the U.S. Supreme Court’s holding in Bostock v. Clayton County,” and to reiterate “protections from discrimination for seeking reproductive health care services.”

Read More

Whitmer Directs Michigan State Agencies to Spread Voting Information

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed an executive directive on Sunday ordering state agencies to spread information about how to register to vote.

On Friday, Whitmer vetoed a bill that aimed to notify potential voters on on an absentee ballot application that it is a felony to vote more than once in the same election.

Read More

Parents Defending Education Files Civil Rights Complaint over Middle School’s Plans for Racially Segregated ‘Affinity Groups’

Parents Defending Education (PDE) filed a civil rights complaint Thursday with the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) against New York City Public Schools for its plans to hold racially segregated “affinity groups,” according to the complaint.

PDE filed the complaint with the Office for Civil Rights “for discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin in programs or activities that receive Federal financial assistance,” claiming the district violated both Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Lower Manhattan Community School, which is the reason for the complaint, planned to divide students into affinity groups at school on Nov. 23 and 24, based on skin color to “undo the legacy of racism and oppression in this country that impacts our school community,” according to an email sent to parents, the Daily Caller News Foundation previously reported.

Read More

Commentary: No Reason for White Guilt

Recently, Ibram X. Kendi was chosen as a recipient for the 2021 MacArthur Genius Fellowship. This event has been met with resounding applause on the Left as it is presumed to be both a well-justified instance of reparative justice and a logical continuation of the 1960s Civil Rights movement. In truth, this event constitutes neither of these things. 

In recent years, we have seen increasing instances of anti-white rhetoric within America, exemplified in the rise of critical race theory, Black Lives Matter, and the writings of folks like Kendi.

Read More

Biden’s Education Department Won’t Enforce a Key Due Process Protection for Students Accused of Sexual Assault

The Department of Education announced it would stop enforcing a Trump administration rule designed to protect those accused of sexual assault on college campuses.

A district court in Massachusetts upheld most of the Title IX 2020 amendments in a July ruling, maintaining new regulations related to public institutions managing allegations of harassment, assault, violence, and more. Although, the court struck down one procedural regulation related to what evidence a “Decision-Maker,” or the employee who is designated to adjudicate the case, may consider in making rulings.

Read More

Biden’s Education Department Won’t Enforce a Key Due Process Protection for Students Accused of Sexual Assault

The Department of Education announced it would stop enforcing a Trump administration rule designed to protect those accused of sexual assault on college campuses.

A district court in Massachusetts upheld most of the Title IX 2020 amendments in a July ruling, maintaining new regulations related to public institutions managing allegations of harassment, assault, violence, and more. Although, the court struck down one procedural regulation related to what evidence a “Decision-Maker,” or the employee who is designated to adjudicate the case, may consider in making rulings.

Following the court ruling and a letter from the Department of Education on Tuesday, the chosen adjudicator can now consider emails and texts between the parties and witnesses, police reports and medical reports, regardless of cross-examination status at the live hearing.

Read More

Biden’s Office for Civil Rights Pick Questioned on Her Position on Campus Due Process

Catherine Lhamon’s (right) work in President Barack Obama’s administration on Title IX issues may have won her praise from liberal groups and organizations representing alleged and confirmed victims of sexual assault, but it drew criticism from the ranking member of the Senate’s education committee.

President Joe Biden has nominated Lhamon to lead the federal Office for Civil Rights in the Department of Education, the same position she held under Obama. But Senate Republicans and due-process advocates have questioned her position on the rights of accused students.

Republican Senator Richard Burr said he is concerned that Lhamon “will charge ahead unraveling significant pieces of the previous administration’s Title IX rules.” He made the comments during a July 13 Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee meeting.

Read More

Education Department Civil Rights Nominee Rejects Presumption of Innocence for Accused Students

Catherine Lhamon

The Biden administration’s nominee to lead the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights told a Senate committee Tuesday that a year-old Title IX regulation does not require the presumption of innocence for students accused of sexual misconduct.

The claim drew bafflement from critics of Catherine Lhamon, who held the same job in the Obama administration’s second term.

In response to threats from Lhamon to pull their federal funding, colleges lowered evidentiary standards and enacted policies that treat accusers more favorably than accused students. Courts have been steadily reining in those practices, sometimes citing the pressure from Lhamon’s office as evidence of bias.

Read More

Commentary: Biden’s Domestic Terrorism Strategy Has Roots in Clinton Years

The “National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism,” released last month by the National Security Council, claims to take a “narrowly tailored” approach. Something along those lines is indeed evident throughout the document.

In 2016, readers learn, “an anti–authority violent extremist ambushed, shot, and killed five police officers in Dallas.” The national strategy document does not identify the killer, Micah Johnson, an African American veteran who hated cops. Johnson actually shot a dozen officers but managed to kill only five, and he had bomb-making materials in his home. This killer only opposes “authority” and his murder victims remain unidentified in the NSC document.

In 2017, according to the National Strategy “a lone gunman wounded four people at a congressional baseball practice.” Readers are not told this was James Hodgkinson, a Bernie Sanders supporter who hated Republicans and targeted them for assassination. That should easily qualify as domestic terrorism but here Hodgkinson is only a “gunman.” The National Strategy does not reveal that the “wounded” included Representative Steve Scalise (R-La.), who barely escaped with his life. The NSC document fails to mention that Hodkinson also shot Capitol Police special agent Crystal Griner, an African American.

Read More

Biden Civil Rights Nominee Pressed Colleges to Adopt Policies Often Struck Down in Court

Catherine Ilhamon

The Biden administration reached back into Team Obama to fill an Education Department slot that oversees civil rights, including Title IX enforcement.

Catherine Lhamon’s nomination last month drew immediate concern from advocates of due process and fair procedures in college Title IX investigations because so many court decisions — 200 by one count — have since challenged the approach she and others in the Obama administration took in investigating campus sexual assaults.

Two more rulings arrived this week, from the 8th U.S. Circuit of Appeals and an Iowa district court under its jurisdiction.

Read More

Carol Swain Commentary: Critical Race Theory Is a Cancer on Our Educational System

Critical race theory is the civil rights issue of our time. It eats away at our public, private, and Christian academies with its cancerous messages about white privilege, minority disadvantage, and perennial racism. Hardly a day goes by that I do not hear from parents and teachers about yet another school system where the cancerous roots of critical race theory have taken hold or begun to appear under the guise of “culturally competent teaching and learning” or “educational equity.” No matter what they call it, they cannot hide its poisonous effects. 

Read More

Education Group Files Federal Civil Rights Complaint Against School District That Admitted to ‘Systemic Racism’

A national advocacy organization has filed a federal civil rights complaint against the Columbus City Schools after its board said there is “systemic racism” within the system.

Parents’ Defending Education’s complaint to the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights came after The College Fix asked it about the statement from the school system.

The Fix asked the legal nonprofit if it planned to file a complaint, similar to the one the group filed against Webster Groves schools in Missouri.

Read More

Seven Michigan Tech Programs Discriminate Against Males, Title IX Complaint Alleges

Michigan Technological University has seven federally funded programs and scholarships that do not enforce Title IX’s prohibition of sex discrimination against men, alleges a complaint filed with the Office for Civil Rights.

It was filed March 2 by University of Michigan-Flint economics Professor Mark Perry.

The complaint was influenced, Perry said, by Michigan Tech associate professor of electrical and computer engineering Jeffrey Burl’s recent letter. In it, Burl alleges he has been “systematically discriminated against” as a white male at MTU during his 28-year career there.

Read More

Commentary: Conservatives Need to Stand Up for Their Own Civil Rights

For those making their arguments about whether Section 230 should be repealed or reformed to protect conservatives on social media, it’s time to declare that this ship sailed long ago. Most of the world has now come to accept that these monolithic platforms can remove people or their content at will. The banning of President Trump and a host of other conservatives from all major platforms has proven this point beyond dispute. 

Read More

Former Democratic Lawmaker Pushes Back on Civil Rights Commission Recommendation to Cut Charter School Funding

A former Democratic lawmaker disagrees with recommendations from the “Education Equity in Michigan,” report the Michigan Civil Rights Commission (MCRC) adopted Wednesday.

The report was issued after the MCRC held statewide public hearings in 2018 and 2019.

Read More

Commentary: Can We Recover American Nobility, Piety, and Humanity?

There was a time when a kind of nobility still existed among our leaders. In Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, delivered March 4, 1865, while the nation was still riven by a bloody Civil War, he envisioned a future of national healing. In words now carved in the marble of the Lincoln Memorial, he pledged, “With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right,” to go on “to bind up the nation’s wounds,” and to “do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves . . .”

Read More