Republicans on the Home Committee on Training and the Workforce this week urged U.S. Training Secretary Miguel Cardona to implement a Trump-era government order supposed to fight antisemitism.
Yearly for the reason that government order was signed, the Training Division has indicated it will develop rules to adjust to it, in line with the letter.
“It by no means has,” the letter acknowledged.
This inaction has left schools “unprepared for and unwilling to deal with the fires of antisemitism which have swept campuses this fall,” the lawmakers argued.
An Training Division spokesperson confirmed through electronic mail Wednesday that the company has acquired the letter.
“Any harassment or discrimination in opposition to college students based mostly on shared ancestry or ethnic traits, comparable to Jewish ancestry, is unacceptable and prevents our nation’s learners from attaining their full potential within the classroom,” the spokesperson stated.
The Republicans’ letter comes amid spiking antisemitism and Islamophobic acts throughout U.S. schools within the wake of the newest Israel-Hamas conflict.
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 doesn’t cowl discrimination based mostly on faith. Nonetheless, in late 2019, then-President Donald Trump signed an government order stating that discrimination in opposition to Jewish individuals could violate Title VI whether it is based mostly on their race, coloration or nationwide origin.
“It shall be the coverage of the manager department to implement Title VI in opposition to prohibited types of discrimination rooted in anti-Semitism as vigorously as in opposition to all different types of discrimination prohibited by Title VI,” the manager order acknowledged.
The U.S. Division of Training plans to amend its rules in response to the manager order, although an internet discover stated it doesn’t anticipate to craft new language till December of subsequent yr.
Nonetheless, an Training Division spokesperson stated Wednesday that the company is “working tirelessly to make sure that this rulemaking course of is accomplished as quickly as attainable and anticipates completion properly earlier than December 2024.”
Within the meantime, the Training Division will proceed adhering to the manager order, the spokesperson stated.
A 2021 doc from the Training Division says that the manager order doesn’t change how its Workplace for Civil Rights handles discrimination complaints involving allegations of antisemitism.
“OCR has lengthy acknowledged that anti-Semitism could violate Title VI,” the doc stated, citing steering issued in 2004 and 2010. These paperwork clarify that Title IV protects in opposition to discrimination based mostly on college students’ “precise or perceived shared ancestry or ethnic traits.”
