A Comprehensive and Practical Approach to Policy Guidance: The Office for Civil Rights’ Role in Education During the Obama Administration

Abstract

As the federal entity in charge of enforcing civil rights law, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) plays a critical role in addressing the vast inequities that exist in U.S. education. Through an analysis of the policy guidance OCR issued for a number of areas during the Obama administration, we illustrate the agency’s comprehensive and practical approach to helping ensure that young people from different backgrounds have equitable access to education and equitable experiences once enrolled. This review provides the foundation for understanding civil rights enforcement in the current context of inequality; it is particularly timely, as the Trump administration has begun a rollback of existing guidance, which has concerning implications for students’ civil rights.

Understanding the linkages between racial/ethnic discipline gaps and racial/ethnic achievement gaps in the United States

“…The OCR must continue to investigate and monitor cases of civil rights complaints including those related to school discipline within schools and districts. Furthermore, the OCR should continue issuing policy guidance documents, support data collection efforts, and engage in monitoring discipline disparities to ensure educational equity within schools and districts (Lewis, Garces, & Frankenberg, 2018).…”

Street-Level Bureaucrats and Intersectional Policy Logic: a Case Study of LGBTQ Policy and Implementation Barriers

“…Unlike single-lens legislation, which either reaffirms the gender binary by forcing students to use spaces in accordance with their sex assigned at birth or protects only trans/GNC students by asserting their right to a particular space, policy 252 represents an intersectional legislative approach by placing the needs of all students at the center with an anchor of privacy and agency rather than identity. Given the contentious public and federal discourse around protecting the rights of trans/GNC people (Lewis et al 2018 ), this policy logic presumes that if a student or parent were to challenge policy 252 for any reason, that student has the same right to privacy as anyone else in the community “regardless of the underlying reason” (School District of Philadelphia 2016 , p. 4). In other words, rather than an individualistic approach that singles out trans/GNC students by delegating them to separate spaces like a nurse’s office, a student potentially opposed to policy 252 can choose to use a separate space underneath this guideline, thereby keeping trans/GNC with their peers instead of reducing them to a single-lens policy trigger.…”

“…In the absence of a federal policy or Supreme Court decision delineating how Title IX protects the gender identity of students, hundreds of local school districts across the USA are developing their own policies outlining the rights of transgender and gender nonconforming (trans/GNC) students (Lewis et al 2018 ). States that offer protection on the basis of gender identity do so through general anti-discrimination laws, policies explicitly protecting gender identity within K-12 schools, and written guidance from state departments of education describing how schools should support a student’s gender identity.…”

K–12 Civil Rights Complaints: A Nationwide Analysis

“…Protection of students from discrimination on the basis of sex, race/ethnicity, and disability, although enshrined in law, needs active enforcement from federal agencies. As such, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) plays an integral role in identifying, addressing, and preventing discriminatory policies and practices through multiple enforcement activities, including the investigation of civil rights complaints (Lewis et al, 2019). Although the data-monitoring function of OCR (e.g., Civil Rights Data Collection) is well known, we know much less about the complaint process, despite its scope and reach.…”