As discussion about ending the US Department of Education continues, we now look at where to put civil rights enforcement, covered by the Office for Civil Rights (OCR), if the department is dismantled. A few days ago, Andrew Gillen did the same thing with student loans.
Importantly, unlike student lending and almost everything else the Department of Education does, under the 14th Amendment civil rights enforcement is a constitutionally legitimate federal function. Washington should have a role in it. But we already have a department tasked with enforcing civil rights: the Department of Justice.
That is where civil rights enforcement in education should go. Indeed, it is already there.
Within the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division is the Educational Opportunities Section, and the DOJ is tasked with enforcing such laws with education components as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Equal Education Opportunities Act of 1974, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and the Education Amendments of 1972. Indeed, when the Department of Education is involved in civil rights lawsuits, it is the DOJ’s Educational Opportunities Section that represents US ED in court.
Given what already exists, moving the OCR’s functions to the Department of Justice makes obvious sense. Except for one thing: those functions are basically already there, making OCR duplicative at best and a hyper-politicized school harassment arm at worst, in which the accusation alone can be the punishment and the scope of investigations can go far beyond specific complaints.
The OCR should be eliminated, and the DOJ should keep enforcing civil rights. If the DOJ needs greater resources to do that with OCR gone, it should make its case to Congress, explaining especially how it can do its job while avoiding costly, politicized crusading.