Ranking Member Scott Leads Civil Rights Forum II

Thank you for being here and thank you for your dedicated fight against uh what's going on in the uh Trump administration fighting civil rights. This administration's attack on diversity, equity, and inclusion and accessibility in the federal government has been in the worst attack on civil rights since we've seen since the 1960s. The administration has issued several education related executive orders that ignore the nation's history and continued reality of inequitable educational opportunities. States and communities have a long history of adopting policies and practices that disproportionately and negatively impact students of color and students with disabilities. For example, the president signed an executive order to dismantle the Department of Education, a department created by Congress to protect students civil rights. The Department of Education actually does very little in education. Most of its right work is in civil rights, guaranteeing access to education, equal access to education for students. Title one of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act recognizes that we fund education with the real estate tax and so it distributes money to high need school districts, low-income areas to ensure that all children have a shot at getting a decent education also helps achieve works on achievement gaps and English language learners and students with disabilities. In higher education, they deal with access, that is PEL grants and student loans. And some of the proponents of the campaign to to eliminate the Department of Education talk about states rights. Wasn't that long ago when states rights was a battlecry of the segregationist? Uh states rights have been used as the strategy to promote slavery, segregation, and abortion and and and eliminating rights to abortion. But it is the lack of equity, quality, and consistency linen among the states that highlighted the need for greater federal role in education. And as attacks on diversity continue, we look forward to the 71st anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education. Uh we're confronted with the reality this country is strayed far from the intended goal of equity and education. We know in 19 in in May 17th 1954 the Supreme Court unanimously rejected the doctrine of separate but equal and struck down lawful school segregation in America. The court said in that opinion that in these days it is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if denied the opportunity of an education. Such an opportunity where the state is undertaken to provide it is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms. Went on to say that in the field of public education, the doctrine of separate but equal has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. But the court's historic ruling was not the end of school segregation. In fact, in Virginia, it sparked massive resistance and in the beginning of a long and difficult struggle to unwind system centuries of systemic inequality that have influenced every aspect of life and continues to this day. The current events the in in current events, the Trump administration's war on diversity, equity, and inclusion and accessibility is not just limited to education. The administration has issued an executive order ironically entitled restoring equality of opportunity and meritocracy to eliminate the use of disparit impact liability. Because of this, Americans are now more likely to be not be denied equality of opportunity and subjected to discriminatory practices in education, workplace, and housing that will go unchecked. Trump administration is also purging federal agencies and employees who supported DEI a initiatives culminating in the unprecedented firing of EEOC commissioners Samuels and Burroughs. Without their presence, the EOCC lacks a quorum and is essentially unable to protect white rights of workers whose rights are under whose rights under title 7 have been violated. and he fired the chair of the joint chiefs of staff and the librarian of Congress and replaced him by people demonstrabably less qualified. Lastly, the Trump administration has ex has rescended executive order 11246, which has been the cornerstone of civil rights protections from federal contracting since 1964. This executive order ensured that federal contractors must take affirmative action to asssure that they are not discriminating against workers based on race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin. These actions assured that taxpayer dollars were not being used to fund discrimination. But unfortunately, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, for all intents and purposes, has been closed. that despite the president's reckless actions and acquence and the acuence of congressional Republicans, we need to ensure the public that we're still fighting for diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. This is just not a fight in Congress. This is why we've asked organizations here to remind us why civil rights need to be protected and tell us what they're specifically doing to combat those attacks. Now, we're not here to what I call celebrate the problem, but we do need to remind people of the need for diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility programs. But we know what this program, what this administration has done. We know this is what this administration is doing, and we know what they plan to do. And we want to let the public know that we are fighting back and how they can join the fight. Now, my pleasure to uh turn the uh program over to Chris Anders, the director of policy and government affairs at the ACLU, who will introduce our p panelists and moderate today's discussion. Chris, uh thank you very much, Congressman. And um I did want to kind of start out with uh thanking uh Congressman um Scott and his staff for all these all his work over all these years. I started at the ACLU in 1997. When I got here, uh, Congressman Scott was for our office the go and I think really for the whole civil rights community, the go-to person on civil rights and civil liberties. And here we are nearly 30 years later and he's still the go-to person. And uh, as is as is his uh, staff on uh, both the Education Workforce Committee and his personal staff. And so I did want to start out with that um uh appreciation for his work um uh on these issues. And uh and I think as as the scope of of um the issues that he raised and the challenges that uh Congressman Scott just uh flagged um we are in a different time uh here and for how many administrations um you know our all of our organizations have gone through and all of our um you know members uh for those on the hill have gone through uh the congresses that they've gone through. We're in a different space. This is a this is a challenge that is unlike anything else that has been experienced in our lifetimes and um and so you know it really it does require all of us working together and um and I'm happy and really honored to be able to uh introduce the panelists that we have here today um from their organizations um each of them have have you know contributed both individually and uh through their organizations to the defense of our democracy. Um, and that really is where we're at uh today. Um, so I'll I'll introduce one each one in turn and and then they'll have about five minutes to kind of talk about what they're doing in in educating the public on the challenges uh litig litigating um to defend to defend our democracy, defend civil rights and civil liberties and also to organize um to make sure that uh that we're reaching the people beyond the beltway. So I'll start with Carrie Flaxman who's a senior adviser um at the at Democracy Forward uh which brings um she brings extensive experience in civil rights litigation and policy. Before she uh joined Democracy Forward, she was vice president for public policy litigation law at Planned Parenthood. And uh so Carrie, I'll turn it over to you. Thanks so much. Um, thank you to ranking member Scott for hosting this important conversation and for the opportunity to join you all today. Thanks Chris for the introduction. My name is Carrie Flaxman and I'm honored to be here today representing Democracy Forward, a national legal organization that advances democracy and social progress through litigation, policy, public education, and regulatory engagement. As we all know, President Trump's first 100 days in office saw a litany of executive orders, more than any other previous administration and actions representative of his most dangerous authoritarian impulses. The question some are asking is where's the push back? Where's the fight? And organizations like Democracy Forward and the ones sitting virtually alongside me on this panel are fighting back. Since the inauguration, more than 230 lawsuits have been filed against the Trump administration's actions. For our part of Democracy Forward, since January 20th, we have filed 65 legal actions and launched 82 investigations, securing major wins to mitigate this administration's harmful policies. We're working to ensure that the courts remain a critical check on executive power and that they are protecting American democracy. And we are winning. As of May 14th, civil society has successfully obtained at least 151 temporary pauses that have been granted in courts across the country from California to Connecticut and and u Michigan to Mississippi. Across our nation, we are seeing court after court recognize the Trump Vance um agenda's unlawful activities with judges and this is important who have been nominated by both Democrats and Republicans ruling for people and for our democracy. I'd love to highlight a few of our cases um that are relevant to today's discussion and I'll start where ranking member Scott started. We are working with many other partners to safeguard our nation schools students and teachers from attack. We were the first to take action against the president's plan to dismantle the department of education filing a lawsuit on behalf of school districts and teachers unions. We've also won a preliminary injunction to uh stop implementation of a dear colleague letter that targeted schools that taught about racism. Uh turning to attacks um unlawful attacks on federal funding when President Trump tried to freeze funding for all federal programs with a midnight memo. Democracy Forward sprung into action, rallying organizations and filing the first lawsuit within 15 hours and securing a stay on the order before the deadline. That order, which is a nationwide court order blocking the freeze, is still in place and protecting critical services from child care to health programs. Since then, we've added other lawsuits challenging the administration's unlawful freezes and terminations, including lawsuits in support of organizations doing naturalization work, and we won a court order reversing the administration's freeze on on congressionally appropriated grants from the Inflation Reduction Act and bipartisan infrastructure law. We're working to protect the civil service. We've launched Civil Service Strong and Rise Up, a legal defense network for federal workers to connect federal workers who rights whose rights have been violated by the administration with resources and free legal administr free legal representation. Democracy Forward has also filed numerous lawsuits against unlawful actions against the civil service like the schedule F executive order firing of probationary employees. Our work achieved the first significant reinstatement of prob probationary employees at six federal agencies. Most recently, just last week, we along with partners obtained a temporary restraining order blocking the administration's unlawful reorganization of the federal government. in the immigration space. Um, we recently sued the Department of Health and Human Services on new policies that have resulted in the separation of families and prolonged detention of children in federal immigration custody. The lawsuit challenges a new rule that disqualifies undocumented family members from sponsoring detained children, leading to prolonged and unnecessary separations. The new rule that we've challenged resin safeguards that previously allowed undocumented family members to sponsor children uh without fear of immigration enforcement. This has caused a dramatic spike in average detention times for these children from 37 days in January to 112 days in in March. Turning to reproductive health, um Trump administration and its allies continue to target women's reproductive health. We at Democracy Forward represent the manufacturer of the generic methopristone Jambiopro to fight back and protect the critical drugs from legal attacks. We're also representing Doctors for America and two cities to defend the 2024 HIPPA reproductive privacy rule which strengthens HIPPA's privacy protections to cover reproductive health care and specifically protect women who travel out of state state to seek lawful abortion care. Texas, Missouri, Tennessee, and many other state AGs have filed cases to attack that rule and HIPPA privacy rights overall, and we're fighting to protect the rule. So, the bottom line is that Democracy Forward and our partner organizations across civil society are showing limitless courage fighting in the courts to stop this executive branch and its attacks. We will not be intimidated by efforts, real or perceived, to threaten or silence us. We will continue to fight for people, families, students, workers, and our communities and for the promise of a functioning democracy. Thank you for having me today. And with that, I'll hand it back over to Chris. Thank you so much, Carrie. Um, and next up is Ray Lee. Um, and Ray is policy counsel at NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, LDF. and um there he has played a pivotal role in advancing civil rights uh through legal advocacy and policy reform. Uh very recently he contributed to uh a recent legal win um here in DC through the US District Court for the District of Columbia uh which issued a preliminary injunction blocking a uh Department of Education certification requirement that would have uh threatened federal funding for schools. Um, thereby, uh, this order basically protects, uh, black students, uh, equal access to quality education. So, with that, I wanted to turn it over to Lee or I'm sorry, Ray. Yeah, thank you for having LDF present today about the work that we've been doing, and I'm specifically going to be talking about uh, our work countering the administration's assault on public education and the legacy of Brown v. Board. Uh so 71 years ago this week, lawyers from LDF, including our founder, Thood Marshall, litigated and won a historic case in Brown v. Board. In Brown, Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote beha on behalf of a unanimous court that an equal public education was quote the very foundation of good citizenship. In declaring segregation in schools unconstitutional, Brown was monumental in chipping away at decades of discrimination against black Americans, not only in the education system, but throughout our multi-racial democracy. Justice did not come with all deliberate speed, though. Uh so over the next few decades, LDF and others filed cases nationwide to enforce the decree of Brown. In many instances, the US Department of Justice joined these suits, putting the weight of the federal government behind the goal of school desegregation. 71 years later, though, it's a simple fact that many schools have yet to desegregate. DOJ is still party to over 100 desegregation cases nationwide. But concerningly, just last month, the DOJ unilaterally dismissed a consent decree that required a Louisiana school district to desegregate. In support of this dismissal, the current head of the DOJ civil rights division stated that quote, "No longer will Plaqueman's Parish School Board have to devote precious local resources over an integration issue that ended two generations ago. Since then, we've been hearing that DOJ may decide to dismiss more of these cases based on this false belief that segregation is an issue of the past." The failure to implement Brown is definitively a current day issue. When you look across the country, the evidence clearly shows that schools are more segregated today than they have been in past decades. According to a recent GAO report, more than a third of students in this country attend schools where 75% or more of those of the students there are of a single race or ethnicity. A recent Stanford study also found that segregation between black and white students in the nation's 100 largest school districts has increased by over 64% since 1988. But Brown's promise is not limited to whether black students are simply in the same buildings as white students. Brown and its progyny ask whether there has been a true equalizing of educational opportunities. Whether that be the quality in facilities, access to resources, quality faculty, transportation, or extracurricular activities. In LBF's cases, we also look to see whether districts are discriminating against black students through racially disperate discipline practices or by restricting access to advanced coursework. Consent decrees, even those that are decades old, help ensure schools compliance with desegregation in all facets of school life. Take for example our case against St. Martin Parish School Board in Louisiana. In 1965, LDF challenged the district's policy of school segregation. The federal court found that the school board's operation of racially segregated schools violated the constitutional rights of black students and entered into a series of consent decrees to remediate these harms. In 2010, LDF and the Justice Department argued that St. Martin School Board had never actually fully desegregated. We won that case and in 2016, the federal district court approved a new school desegregation plan to ensure equal educational opportunities for black students in St. Martin. Subsequently, we entered into agreements with the district to take efforts to increase high school graduation rates, decrease the use of overly punitive discipline policies, promote diversity among teachers and staff, and improve school facilities. Further court orders and consent decrees came over the years, including in 2021 and 2023, to continue to put pressure on St. Martin Parish to equalize opportunities for students in the districts. So these issues stemming from Brown are clearly not problems that went extinct two generations ago. St. Martin is just one example, but LDF remains involved in dozens of school desegregation cases across the country affecting tens of thousands of students. We continue to say motivated and safeguarding Brown's legacy. And it is also clearly the case that DOJ cannot unilaterally dismiss cases from its desegregation docket when other parties including LDF are involved. At the same time, attacks on Brown do not only come when DOJ dismisses desegregation cases. As uh Krie just mentioned, recently the Department of Education has issued guidance that tries to chill lawful efforts by schools to create racially inclusive school environments. In February, it was a DCL and FAQ. Uh and then in April, the department followed up those documents with a request that state and local education agencies sign an assurance to certify their compliance with the department's wart view of the law. These interpretations attempt to use brown and turn it on its head. Practices that support racially inclusive school environments like affinity groups that are open to all or curriculum that teaches the truth about American history do not generally violate the law. And so LDF sued last month uh to enjoin all three of these documents alleging among other things that they violated constitutional rights under the first and fifth amendments. As a result, we secured a preliminary injunction against the certification requests. And on the same day, concurrent litigation from our partners, including those on the call, the ACLU and democracy forward uh also secured injunctions against the dear colleague letter and FAQ. So over the past month, we've been getting the message out about these litigation wins uh to every single state education agency in the country as well as hundreds of local education agencies. Uh we've also been communicating directly with students and families uh with template letters so they can push back on their school boards and roll backs of diversity, equity, and inclusion in their schools. And we've already seen positive results from that with school districts in Decar, Georgia, and Cold Spring, New York taking action in response to this litigation. So, as we head into this weekend's anniversary of Brown, we must all remain vigilant of attacks on equal educational opportunities for students in this country. Whether that be in the form of defunding public education through the appropriations process, through dismantling the Department of Education, or these misguided executive actions from the administration, LDF is working on many fronts, including working with allies in Congress uh to push back and conduct oversight over uh executive actions. And of course, we continue to file litigation as well in due course. Just wanted to quickly mention we've also filed uh against ED itself two lawsuits. One challenging the cessation of the collection of federal education data that's incredibly important to researchers and to civil rights advocates across the country as well as a lawsuit challenging the wholesale cancellation of the equity assistance centers program. Uh so happy to discuss those more. Great. Thanks so much for having Thanks also for all the work that LDF is doing. Um the next uh our next speaker is Rebecca Dixon who's president and CEO of the National Employment Law Project um where she leads efforts to advance workers rights and economic justice. She draws from her experiences growing up in rural Miss Mississippi at the intersection of race, class, and gender. She was instrumental in expanding unemployment insurance coverage in 20 states during the Great Recession, which benefited over 20 million workers. Um, I want to give uh Rebecca some time to talk about the work of uh NELP. Thank you, Ranking Member Scott, for this important briefing. At NELP, we believe every worker deserves a good job, one that pays a living wage, robust benefits, and we are here to fight lead the fight to make good jobs a good jobs economy the reality. I think we can all agree that working people drive our economy and that government has an important role to play in supporting and empowering their shared prosperity. Work is foundational to our deeply held and widely shared value of equality of opportunity. In exchange for their contributions, all working people should be able to expect a good job in return, to be treated with dignity, to earn livable wages, to have good benefits and access to all the jobs to which they are qualified. The fact is, hundreds of years after the end of slavery and decades after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, our labor market remains deeply segregated by race, gender, and other characteristics. Even after you control for education, nearly 90% of occupations are considered reg racially segregated. The way that that plays out in practice is that the burden of underpaying jobs, dirty jobs, dangerous jobs, jobs with few benefits fall most heavily on black and Latino workers and on working women. rooted in racist sexist stereotypes and beliefs. This segregation is about which people should be doing which work and who is deserving of more compensation, better working conditions and advancement opportunities, who should have power in the workplace. But beliefs don't operate on their own. They are embedded in laws and practices and can be challenged and changed. There are a number of structural barriers including discrimination and hiring, on the job harassment, and the criminal legal system that disproportionately targets workers of color. and then traps them in a cycle of bad jobs and reincarceration. Our civil rights and labor protection laws and policies and their enforcement agencies exist to support and empower working people in fulfilling this promise of good jobs and in removing the barriers that hold them back. As others have said, the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission administers the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which banned employment discrimination based on race, sex, and other factors. and that has helped to label level the playing field for women and workers of color. The Department of Labor has a vital role in import enforcing foundational protection on wages, rights, and benefits. The Occupational Safety and Health Act passed in 1970 has helped transform America's workplaces in ways that have significantly reduced workplace fatalities, illnesses, and injuries. and the National Institute of Occupational Safety, the the uh NAOSH, which is not in OSHA, is actually in HHS, uh has helped to investigate workplace injuries and outbreaks of diseases and the Office of Federal Contracting Compliance has a critical role to play in enforcing equal opportunity and federal contracting. To be sure, with these agencies and these laws, we have made some progress in our aspiration of equal opportunity for all working people over the last 60 years. And we have made progress in getting more workers into good jobs and making bad jobs better jobs. But none of the work is done and it is currently under attack in careless blanket cuts to the aforementioned agencies such as cutting 900 workers from NYOSH which is 90% of their staff and firing commissioners and members of several independent federal agencies including the EEOC, the National Labor Relations Board and other agencies that protect civil servants and federal employees. We have seen these folks are under attack, but working people, labor unions and organizations like Nel and those represented on this panel have been pushing back. And in the case of NAOSH, which employers rely on heavily to breast protect their workers, we have recently in the last two days been able to get a third of those workers back their jobs. And then of course um RFK Jr. was heavily and aggressively questioned about these cuts yesterday during his oversight hearing and all but conceded that they were made without proper thought and care. We will continue working with the Cal Manavitz Institute and at Georgetown University and the AFL CIO to try to bring back as many workers as possible. Nel has also been involved in the effort to set up the federal workers legal legal defense network which is helmed by the AFL CIO empowered by we the action and supported by many of the other groups including the leadership conference the American constitution society and democracy forward and this network has so far recruited over a thousand volunteer attorneys to help federal workers and over 1400 workers have reached out already. NEP has prepared resources and question and answer material and webinars to really get the word out about unemployment benefits and make sure that these workers have access to support while they're between jobs. Um to bring this full circle, working people drive our economy and government has a role to play in supporting and empowering their shared prosperity. A recent study found that US gross domestic product would have been 22.9 trillion dollars higher from 1990 to 2019 if opportunities and outcomes were more equally distributed by race and ethnicity. That doesn't even factor in gender. Occupational segregation and holding back women workers and workers of color holds back all workers, depresses economic activity. We and our allies will continue to center working people and insist that all workers are treated with dignity, earn livable wages, and have good benefits and access to all the jobs for which they are qualified. Thank you. Thanks so much, Rebecca. I wanted to see if um we could uh you know flesh out some of the discussion a little more. Um, and I wanted to start with Carrie and um, your organization as you went through covers an awful lot as the as we're going through this uh, highly destructive period with the Trump administration. Um, you know, you're it's a you're certainly drinking out of the out of a fire hydrant, right? Uh but you also have clearly and your organization has clearly um prioritized uh protecting civil rights and including uh DEI programs from attacks. Um, and if you could talk about how your organization reached this conclusion that this is an area that you wanted to prioritize, um, and how you went about that. And then, and then also if you could talk a little bit kind of beyond litigation, the other kind of tools in the toolbox that are being used, um, by your organization, others to uh, protect uh, civil rights and DEI programs. Sure. Thanks for that question. you know, we're all drinking from the fire hose with this. And um we um from the beginning at Democracy Forward, we've been about prioritizing people and communities and making sure that they had access to the courts. And um uh as importantly, making sure they knew they had access to the courts and that those courts were places where they could um fight back. And um and so we're you know prioritizing as you can see in the in the issues that I um that I mentioned which is um you know actually a small part of of the work we're doing. Um we are really highlighting trying to make sure that people in their communities are make are able to get into court and that's really our our north star. Um being able to participate in our democracy is so important to its long term long-term success. Um, you know, I think we see litigation itself as an important tool to educate communities. um and the work of of everyone um uh Rey and Rebecca's organizations and yours Chris and in bringing cases um is doing a lot of important work the stories that that are coming out of of litigation um as well as the work that people are are doing more generally to show the um the real personal impacts of of the cuts that are happening. So, not just in the education space, not just to workers, but you know, if you think particularly about the attacks on the civil service, explaining to people, explaining to communities how what these cuts are going to mean to um them how important the federal workforce is to um to to them, to what they take for granted in their everyday lives. Um and and so showing them through litigation, through the other tools that are at our disposal that that that Democracy Forward and the other organizations on this phone on this call use um is just a critical piece of of fighting back um um in these um really difficult times. Chris, they just called votes, so I'm going to have to leave in just a second. But I would like I want to see if we can get some information from our panelists as to what data and evidence they're using as the basis for their cause of action, kind of showing that um when people say you don't need DEI initiatives anymore, uh of course you do. Um because here's what's happening here and here's what's happening there. Uh do we have um can we I I don't know if would if we can get stories um even maybe even after the um after the call. So we have some documentation that um when they're denying the need for DEI, they're just denying reality. I mean I can go ahead. Would you like me just to hop in? Um you know Yes. Yes. I mean certainly everyone on um all the cases that have been filed challenging these actions come with um uh when you're seeking an emot seeking emergency relief come with declarations that are doing exactly this telling the story telling the impact how these programs how DEIA is is critical to ensuring um that everyone um can um participate fully. Um we have had in in in other cases in which we've been involved. Um, we have a a a a state court case um challenging a state court um real estate approval board against an attack um on a on a requirement that the board members be diverse and and and in in that case have have amassed a um expert testimony on historical importance um about the the real historical discrimination in in that field and the the continuing real need for uh DEIA. So there are many tools that we can use in litigation and ultimately they all tell the same story which is how important it is to continue these programs. Ray, do you have uh or Rebecca additions? Yeah, additionally I I mean uh we could all obviously follow up with your office with some some more data and we're actually planning on submitting um some some uh testimony ahead of some hearings next week. Uh but in in our litigation, if you look at our declarations, you don't need widescale data. You can just drill down to the individual level of students who say, "Hey, I was looking forward to taking this class in college on critical race theory because it's related to my major and it's going to help me with my thesis and this college in Virginia had to roll it back uh because of threats from the federal government saying they might lose all their federal funding if they have this." And so, uh, you can of course amalgamate all of that into data, but each of these individual stories of students, teachers, families being denied access to truthful accounts of history, uh, being denied access to finding community uh, in places where they might be minoritized. Um, all uh, very ring true and and can give rise to legal claims without having to show some sort of um, widescale effect on their own. But the widescale effect is obviously there in terms of how these programs in college help with retention with graduation especially for low-income first generation students who are navigating college and first in their families to do so. Um having supports for them is incredibly important. That research has been uh well shown over time. We we have a recent report that we put out um called desegregating opportunity that has a lot of data in it and we're happy to get that to you and any other specific data that that would be helpful. That'd be great. Thank you. Great. Thanks so much. So, uh, Rey, you talked really in a very compelling way about the focus that you and LDF have had on education and, uh, and particularly, you know, the disruptions and, uh, the harm that's being caused by the actions that, uh, the education department and the, uh, wider administration are taking. Now, um you have you have an audience now of of um congressional staff here and you talked about um you know going you know looking for congressional oversight and and things that that Congress can do. um if you could talk to um staff about what they can actually do to uh to push back and you know whether whether they're whether their boss is in a more leadership type position like Congressman Scott or whether they might not even be on the a relevant committee. Uh but how can they use their platform and their and their office to uh to push back on this? Great question. Uh so my my background is actually I I recently came to this job from the department of education. So I was in the office for civil rights on the policy team there and left on the last day of the administration. And so, uh, a lot of the push back, um, and I've talked to some folks that are on this call, uh, have been about getting educated on what's happening to the Department of Education in terms of the dismantling of the Department generally and of the Office for Civil Rights and how that is leaving a gap in the ability of students and families to be able to pursue rightful discrimination claims that they might have. And so a lot of that can be done through oversight letters from Congress to the Department of Education asking about their district. Uh so asking about school districts, major school districts that you have. Um are there complaints against these school districts that are are they being filed? And if they're being filed, are there sufficient resources to be able to actually address these claims? Uh so obviously they they have fired over, you know, about half of the Office for Civil Rights. They've closed seven of the 12 offices. uh and it has led to doubling if not tripling in some instances of the case loads of uh line attorneys who are in charge of investigating and responding to these claims. Uh so on a pure resources front that's going to be a problem. But where there might be additional pressure from Congress is saying uh we we've been hearing that there have been more directed investigations in which political leadership at OCR is deciding what to investigate uh instead of letting attorneys actually triage and go through and look at cases that are coming in. And so pushing and saying, "Hey, we have real students in our district who might have uh complaints about racially hostile environments in a K- through2 school. They might have complaints about accommodations for their disabilities that aren't going through. These are kind of breadandbut cases for OCR that typically go through in any administration um that have been put on hold whether for resource constraint reasons or for political reasons that Congress can try to get moving by trying to get senses of numbers of hey how many racial hostile environment cases are there in our you know related to schools in our district. Uh what's happening to those cases? Has there been movement in the last three months? Uh so asking questions on that front. We've also seen executive orders in the education space that aren't self-executed. They're from the White House and they're directing the Department of Education and Department of Justice to issue new guidance on things like school discipline. Uh something that we care deeply about is making sure that schools don't discriminate through the application of their discipline policies. uh whether that be disciplining black students more harshly than others uh for the same offenses or if that means having policies that through their effects uh lead to discrimination on the basis of race. the department hasn't actually issued guidance there. And I think this is the right moment uh for Congress to help get advocates in the room uh with the Department of Education or Congress uh directly um working with the Department of Education to help shape that guidance um and to see what that looks like and to make sure that it adheres to Title Six um and and to what we traditionally see as the legal balance here. Uh we also see things that are firmly in Congress's uh you know, jurisdiction here. The appropriations process right now has a ton of different uh challenges for public education. Uh whether that be defunding public education at the K through2 level there, you know, in the president's skinny budget request, there was the idea of consolidating essentially all elementary and secondary education funding into one block grant program. Uh that might mean that we're losing things like the magnet school assistance program that is supposed to help with integration. It might mean losing things like foster and diverse schools program, a new uh program that's helping uh to support diversity in schools. And so Congress uh has the right to know what you know what the president is actually proposing here uh in terms of these line item uh big you know consolidations where he's cutting billions and billions of dollars uh from funding for K- through2 education without any specific details on what's going on. Um and that also brings up one last point on on the reconciliation front. That's an active fight that's coming to Congress now. Uh so we see it in the House. It's coming to the Senate soon. And we see higher education member uh higher education changes there that haven't gotten a lot of play uh in the news, but are incredibly impactful for students access to higher education, especially for black and low-income students. There changes in there that would cut eligibility for PEL for possibly tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of students every year. uh so access to PEL funding for low-inccome students there uh roll backs of regulations there that are trying to regulate predatory highcost lowquality programs including many for-profit programs that is being done through the reconciliation process and so Congress has a ton of say here whether you're on the you know committees or not um the these issues are coming to the floor soon and um we you know as an advocacy community are are happy to help educate on where these provisions are and how they might be affecting uh things whether they be firmly sitting with Congress or things that are being mowled over in the executive right now. Great. Thank you. Um Rebecca, if turning to employment, if you could uh give us all kind of may maybe a little bit of federal contractors contracting employment 101, right? Um why is why is it so important and harmful um what uh President Trump did in his first week in office to uh take away the protections that have been provided to uh employees of federal contractors and those employees make up about 20% of the of the overall national workforce. Great question. So the workforce covered by OFCCP includes workers from every sector of the economy and it includes low-wage workers like maintenance workers, janitors, security guards, office administrators. Um, so as I spoke about earlier, so jobs that have high concentrations of women and workers of color, the best way to talk about OFCCP is to understand the impact of uh losing it is to look at what it's accomplished in the last decade. So in the last decade, it's obtained over $260.8 million in financial relief for more than 250,000 employees and job seekers. and it has secured 22,600 job opportunities and salary adjustments for individuals who had suffered discrimination. When workers face discrimination and hiring and pay inequity and other forms of unfair treatment, OFCCP would use its authority not only to provide relief directly to those impacted individuals, but also to ensure that companies change their practices and comply with the law moving forward. So the agency also conducts proactive audits to deter and root out discrimination which means that workers coming forward is not the only way to um to find the discrimination and to address it. Right. Thank you. So I wanted to uh I think this is another kind of area where it'd be really helpful to you know provide some education for people who might not have um have had to uh had to deal with disperate impact um uh claims and uh and what the disperate impact theory is. But then they're hearing a lot about it and hearing about uh the Trump administration's attack on on disperate impact um litigation. Um and if um I'll kind of open it up to anyone who wants to weigh in because it you know it comes up in in both the employment and the education context. And if you and if you talk about kind of like what why why it's important um and what the um what the attacks are are costing us right what what kinds of harms um we'll see if these uh protections are taken away I can start so desperate impact liability is one of those critical tools um to to actually address discrimination and it's deeply rooted and judicial president and congress actually wrote it into title 7 um when it was amended in 1991 and that passed with 93 votes in the senate. So it was very uh it had broad support and only congress can change it um though the president and the acting chair of the EOC can do significant damage to it in the meantime. Um we know that much of discrimination um that drives occupational segregation happens without a smoking gun. So without an obvious or conscious attempt to discriminate or maybe through the use of a characteristic that is a proxy for race, gender, or another identity such as um uh criminal history. One of the areas where we're particularly concerned on civil rights protection for workers is those workers with arrest and conviction records. Nearly one-third of US adults have an arrest or conviction record. And like all workers, they also deserve good jobs. Yet some employers systemically deny them fair opportunities to work and this is a lifelong impact um in terms of reductions in employment and wages. The EOCC's only pending disperate impact case uh alleges that a convenience store chain maintained a long-standing practice of screening all job applicants for records of criminal conviction and then denying them employment based on these records. And this practice disproportionately excludes workers of color who are more likely to be um impacted by our criminal justice system. So this there are real consequences to to not using this tool uh to get justice for workers. Would you like to talk about in the education context? Yeah. So in education, um obviously schools are also employers and so on the title 7 front um a lot of what Rebecca just said is incredibly important. Uh but in in the title six context uh there's an active uh move right now by the federal government to essentially resend disperate impact regulations that are um support are implementing title six. Uh so we actually saw the first announcement of one of those interim f final rules this week from the department of energy. Uh not really sure why energy went first uh but they went first and it kind of lays out the blueprint of what these recision of rules might look like in other agencies uh including when it eventually gets to the department of eds title six regulations. And so uh what what that means is I mean we see the use of disperate impact uh right now as an incredibly useful tool in fariting out discrimination in education where it's not as clear as you know a whites only sign in front of a school. uh that might be in the case of discipline practices uh where you have hair policies that uh might be race neutral on their face but have a disperate impact on black students and and lead to exclusion for black students um without you know legitimate reason for them or uh there's a way to achieve the same goals in a less discriminatory way which is essentially the base standard uh for disparate impact. The other thing that I wanted to flag in the department of educa or department of energy rule is it clearly lays out the title six jurisdiction for u limited English proficiency coverage. So this idea that the federal government and recipients of federal funds uh can't discriminate against non uh or those who don't have uh proficiency in English. Uh, and that's kind of the undergirling of what makes it so the federal agencies provide translations and assistance on documents uh, to make sure that those who aren't yet fluent in English are able to access important government services. That's directly addressed headon in the DOE rag as one of the things that we're sending is is the policies that the DOE has with regards to um, LEAP. Obviously, if that goes into the Department of Education space, that's going to have ripple effects all across uh public education when it comes to uh not only students who are English learners, but parents with limited English proficiency as well. And so, the attacks are very real uh on the title six front. Uh and they they affect a wide variety of of topics. Great. Gary, do you have anything to add to that? I mean there obviously Rebecca and Ray are are the the experts um on on this. I I would add a few observations. Um the I think we as a community are playing whack-a-ole um on these um on these attacks because they're coming they're coming in in so many forms. You have executive orders. Um you have certifications um to receive money. You have dear colleague letters. Um you know Ray just mentioned this the rule from the energy department which I don't think is where folks thought the attacks would start but also in the form of a direct final rule which is not a typically used form of rulem and so you know we need to be looking across agencies as everyone did is doing to see these attacks and figure out the best way to fight back. Um and I would also just mention in from the reproductive health space which is which is my background um we are um you know the some of the attacks that are coming in the reproductive um rights and health space right now are coming in the form of anti-Dei attacks. uh the money that is frozen about title about the title 10 family planning program right now are for in alleged investigations with alleged non-compliance with title six and title 7 around just public statements that were made in support of of DEIA. Um there are requested changes being made to the teen pregnancy prevention program also with the same asserted goals. And so these attacks are coming across the federal government in in different ways, in different programs. And um you know, I'm in I'm in awe of the community's ability to um to be tracking this and collectively figuring out a way to um to fight back. Great. As we um close out, I I'm realizing that the chat function doesn't work on this. So, um, but I did want to make sure that, um, everyone on this call, you know, particularly all the staff on the call have have an ability to kind of reach out to each of you and to your organizations. So maybe if we could just kind of go go through and if if you you know if you feel comfortable giving give an email address or contact information and also also where else um uh they can how else can they kind of keep up with what your organization is doing and uh and then and then I think also given that um you know some of the staff are from you know personal offices where they are might be getting um inquiries where they they feel like this could be this could be a matter that really should be, you know, looked at as possible litigation. How do they how do they reach how do they get into your pipeline of of um of case, you know, potential cases uh if they have a constituent or know of an area where they feel like this would be something that really should end up in litigation. I I would say the first place to stop is our website. We have uh a tracker, the worker policy tracker, where we are tracking all of these um activities that affect workers um in real time. So you'll find a lot of information there, what what the actual change is, what's the impact of the change and what's being done around the change. Um that information is there. You can also find um my information to contact me and um and folks on my team who are the subject matter experts. And that's uh [Music] www.nep.org for democracy forward. You can always email me. I'm at cflaxman democracyforward.org. Um our website is democracyforward.org and we have a lot of information about our cases, about the attacks. Um but another important place to go is that we um have um have a democracy 2025 um coalition that is over 500 organizations now including all the organizations on this call that um is that website has a lot of information about the attacks. um also has uh the organizations that are part of that coalition and if you reach out uh to me directly or even through that website um if there are questions about you know who's doing this work where should I go that's another place to to look to find that out or to reach out to us to ask yeah um and my job I I'm very new to this show this is like my first month on the job but I view it as being a connection between LDF including our litigators and the Hill. And so I put my email, I changed my name on here to have my email in parenthesis. If you go to the panelist tab, I don't know if that worked, uh, but it is rly nacd.org. Uh, happy to meet with folks. I'm based in DC, so can come to the hill, uh, do virtual meetings. Uh we've created a lot of materials recently even on this disparate impact front that are meant to try to translate some of these legal principles and and legal arguments for uh health staff who might not be lawyers. Uh so happy to circulate a lot of those um as well. And um just one quick plug that we have a Brown anniversary event on Monday that LDF is hosting uh with some other orgs. And so if you want to go to our socials, you can uh check the registration for that. It's going to be enlightening conversation including with some former administration officials from Alles admin to talk about a lot of the current attacks and a lot of what we talked about today. Uh but happy to meet with anyone and and talk through and connect you with anyone at LDF that might be helpful for you or a constituent. Uh and I'll say for the ACLU I'm available to kind of anyone any time. uh Chris Anders and uh for anyone at the ACLU our our uh email protocol is the same which is first initial last nameacclu.org. Um you can reach out to any of us and uh with any question and we'll get it to the right person if it's not in our area. Uh you're certainly welcome to contact me at any point. Um and then on our website aclu.org We have we have just a wealth of information about um all of our um litigation, all of our um uh policy work. Um pretty much every pretty much every letter testimony, anything that we do with Congress um is archived there. So, uh if you just use our our search function, you can find um almost anything as well as a lot of our litigation. We put up um a lot of our key documents um on it. Um, and then for for intake, um, again, you can certainly you can certainly contact me and I can I can get you to the right person. Um, but the ACLU has a state affiliate in every state in the country. That's usually the the entryway into into um our legal department, our our uh litigation is is uh through our state affiliates. And uh so in every state you can refer you can refer any constituent really to to the ACLU of that state and they can and they can you know do that initial conversation with them. Um and I want to thank again uh Congressman Scott and his staff uh for putting this together and for inviting us and uh and for uh really coming up with this really great idea this uh series. Thank you.