What do we talk about when we talk about civil rights? According to Russlynn Ali, director of the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights, many school employees just don't know: ?There's not a superintendent or a school official or a teacher that I've met anywhere that says, ?I go to work every day wanting to violate students' civil rights.' The problem is in far too many cases they actually don't understand what their responsibilities are.? Perhaps. But suspicious of this reasoning we should be. If the multitudes who work in schools are so often ignorant of Ali's expansive brand of civil rights, perhaps it is Ali, and not the school employees, who lacks understanding. AP reports, ?Number of ed civil rights complaints on the rise.? Is this because a) civil rights were not adequately policed by the previous administration, b) actual civil rights violations are rapidly increasing, or c) the new administration has significantly widened the definition of ?civil rights violation???C. C. C.
?Liam Julian, Bernard Lee Schwartz Policy Fellow