Trump Admin Ends Forcing Schools To Discipline Based On Race– thefederalist.com

The Department of Education announced Thursday it is scrapping regulations the Obama administration “weaponized” to discipline students differently based on their race.

Responding to the Department of Justice’s move in December to eliminate “disparate-impact liability” for Title VI of the Civil Rights Act — prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin in federally funded programs — the Education Department is rescinding multiple “disparate-impact” provisions from its implementation of Title VI.

Disparate impact theory posits that a neutrally applied policy or regulation can be technically discriminatory if it affects one group disproportionately compared to another. For example, if one group of people commits more of a certain kind of crime than others, disparate impact theory would suggest that the law prohibiting the crime is discriminatory because it is being enforced against the group committing the crime more frequently than groups that are not.

“While disparate-impact liability has been used for decades, the Obama Administration weaponized it as a tool for the radical left, forcing schools to make race a factor when considering disciplinary actions,” the department stated. “Indeed, under Democrat Administrations, OCR found schools guilty of violating Title VI for even-handedly applying race-neutral policies — with no discriminatory intent — solely because data indicated the school disciplined more minority students.”