Mobile video app, and online at cspan. Org. A discussion on how to disperse address discrimination in the classroom. People of the office of civil rights. We hear from assistant education secretary for civilrights Catherine Lehman with the center of American Progress. I am delighted to be in conversation with the secretary of civil rights, Catherine Lehman. Welcome back. To start us off, tell us what the office of civil rights do at the department of education. If you justice give you justice. They emphasize vigorous i emphasize i emphasize vigorous. We were created by congress after the 1954 Civil Rights Act was passed in congress created our office to enforce that short proper promise that no person shall experiences formation on the basis of race and National Origin in public foundations and since that time, congress has added additional jurisdiction basis on our charge. We have disability this cremation and age discrimination, are big topics. We have 12 offices around the country and 600 staff dedicated to enforcing federal laws and our mission, our charge is to investigate whenever we have information that the law has been violated is a frequent occurrence for us. I can hear you but i think the rest could not. [laughter] we take seriously that no person should experience discrimination and we try to move as quickly as we can and we try to use all the tools we have, that means guidance to share information about what that is and how we enforce it. We investigate schools and we are engaged in active free like regulating at the moment which is a new muscle for us. That is iraq mission that is our broad mission. Justice and a lot of justice. This is not your first time in this role. You are the assistant secretary for civilrights with the Obama Administration. I come back . Why come back . I didnt want to leave. [laughter] the career staff gave me repeated reminders that it would be unseemly for security to walk me out. It was the last day and i was devastated to leave and i was it was incredibly hard to be away from the office from the time i was away, i am a lifelong civilrights lawyer. You didnt say that but i will say myself. I spent 17 years suing government before coming to government. When i came i saw how much change we can make and how quickly and there is no place else in the country where i can do as much good as i can at the office of civil rights and i am so desperate to be back. I would be devastated when i have to leave again and i hoping that is 5. 5 years. Putting the stem of the office, the work that we see is extraordinary and the ability to make change for millions of people that is consistent with our countrys highest at on what civil rights should mean for students, there is no other way to have that kind of reach and to make that difference and that gets me up in the morning. We are happy you did. There is a lot of conversation right now around the words diversity, equity, and inclusion. I asked the is it that assistant secretary for civilrights, what do those words mean to you . They mean to me with the president said, the president issued a executive order about diversity, equity and inclusion access. For us as a country, i think they need to meet each of us is respected for who we are for all the ways we show up at the world in the world and from a, we dont experience harm on the basis of those identity characteristics and they should be protected over decades so my my job is to ensure externally, in schools, students are able to focus on reading and writing and arithmetic and not on discrimination based on an assumption or stereotype or actuality of their identity and that is important and we try to live that in our own practice in our internal work but i dont have internal employment respond response abilities like other agencies do. What do those words need to you as a parent . I have two kids, one is in college and the other is in high school and i and fears about making sure i am fierce about making sure my kids have every opportunity that we save our kids should have. That we say our kids should have. For the 49 million k12 students and college students, each of them we need to treat every student in schools that the student is someone pressure someones precious baby. Students should be able to fulfill their dreams and complete their aspirations. We need to make sure our schools are designed to offer that and be that. I want to talk to you about students the recent Supreme Court opinions so that opinion drastically altered, upended 40 years of precedent for how colleges and universities can continue race can consideration for any factors on the admission process. What does that mean for you and what is the education opportunity mean for america . And means a very changed practice for me. It means a very changed practice for me and we have received complaints and responses to the courts decision challenging, asking us to examine those references in my position so it will be a new day for us in how we enforce and what we will do. You mentioned it. It upended 45 years of practice in school. I mentioned there are roughly 6000 colleges and universities and some 200 of them have been engaging in some form of use of race in admissions practices. That number among others will likely need to reconsider how they consider race, if they consider race, when engaging their admissions practices. What i think it means for us as a country, to see that kind of seachange and ate the law and seachange in our shared understanding of what is an available tool is an opportunity, welcomed or not, is an arm opportunity to reconsider what and how we do the work to admit, retain, support, and graduate diverse classes. Nothing in the Supreme Courts decision challenges the ability to engage in those practices. My hope is that colleges and universities that were interested to ensure they educate richly diverse classes persists and a commitment to educate richly diverse classes. Some colleges that were committed should start to become committed also. It is time for us to think about how we do the work well and what new opportunities are available to us now that maybe was a crutch that we have been using is no longer available to us. What will be there and said and if anyone doesnt know, the president promised and we delivered, the department of education and department of justice to, within 45 days of the court decision, issue a set of resources that describe what the law is and what is still available. We are clear, the court did not take away the ability to seek a diverse class, to educate a diverse class. The court did not speak to more than it did in the cover and the university of North Carolinas admissions process. That leads a wide variety of available options still to make sure you are educating diverse classes of students and we not only bring them but keep them and graduate them and prepare them and they are our future. We were specific about tools. They include recruitment strategy, they include work on the belonging, making sure students feel like campuses are for them. And offer up a wide open field if the coalition is open and willing. I found it interesting that you focused on belonging. Why is that important and for colleges and universities to not only focus on admissions and a diverse campus, but also retaining one. Why is that so important . If we do not retain people, at the very core, that is an important element for us. Apart from that, in my work to enforce that no person will experience discrimination, what i see are the ugliest acts of harassment. A hostile environment that prevents a student from being able to benefit from education, being able to focus on math, physics, whatever the subject is. We will not develop the leaders we need in our society if we do not nurture them and make sure they can complete their educational journey. Complaints and specific instances of discrimination, your Office Reviews them can you talk about some rights and violations in the abstract russian mark what is . What is an example of that . Our fiscal year goes october to september and we saw the highest number of complaints that weve ever seen in the history of the office of civil rights. And that is not good news. On the one hand, i think i am pleased that people believe government will be different, please people are coming to us and expecting redress because that is our job. On the other hand, the complexity and the harms we see, the complaints are astonishing. And some of them are the old style discrimination, you know it is going to happen and some are new and astonishing that you did not know somebody could do that we hear about. Covid has created a different overlay for different harms that might get visited on students. That is painful to see. My staff are terrific. We are equal to the task although it is difficult to deliver without that degree of complaint coming in. We have 18 fewer staff investigating than the last time we had the next highest complete volume which is the last time i was here. At the end of fiscal year 16 we had 18 more staff, so it is a hard time to do the work. Let me tell you the cases we resolved and the justice that we did. I talked about harassment, we resolve the case in a School District in iowa where a student was subjected to a hostile environment that is school did not respond to. To really contextualize it 16 of the students were black so it is an isolated experience. After the George Floyd Murder white student knelt on a gatorade bottle and looked at this black student and said, i cant breathe as a way of harassing the student. And the principal didnt view that as racial harassment, which it was, let me just say, you know, the but the principal didnt recognize that as rising to the level of, of race harassment even though it was also in the context of the student being called a Cotton Picker called a monkey. Had students saying the the kkk is the Cool Kids Club at the school is over and over and over. Really ugly harassment is a middle school student. He was reduced to tears in class. And that is not common among middle school boys and he was reduced to tears because he was watching a docentary about and thinking about his own experience in school and receiving inconsistent and insufficient response from the School District. And thats not how a child should have to learn. Thats not what we expect when, when we send our kids to school. And by the way, just as a reminder, school is compulsory in, in k 12. So, you know, this child was required to be in School Every Day and the, and the learning environment for the student was so ugly about who he is and he and his mom were complaining to the School District and the administrators who were, whose job it is to support him were turning away and saying its not that bad. Its not that it doesnt matter. And it doesnt matter. The federal government now says it matters. They are subject to federal monitoring and that kid is ok. Now and theyre paying for counseling. So, you know, ii i feel good about what were doing for him, but appalled that it took federal intervention and it took a little White Knuckle negotiating to, to get this district to realize that they actually needed to, to change their practices. Thats very far from isolated. And another recent resolution was, this is in an arizona School District where a, a black mother came to us and complained that her black daughter repeatedly had white teachers touching her hair and she would ask them not to touch her hair and they kept doing it. And that when we looked in the files, we found the teachers saying, oh, you know, she needs somebody to tell her that shes beautiful. And so im doing this and she should be grateful. And i was like, oh, theres more to the story than i expected when, when we first got that in the complaint. But that, you know, that was the look of the complaint and we confirmed that that had happened and needed to change. But we also in the course of the investigation found out about rampant race harassment across racial identities, you know, ugly, anti semitic slant, slurs and People Holding up their eyes for to asian students and just, you know, pick your category, just rampant race harassment that was taking place the district without district response. And you know, im grateful that we found out but it wasnt what this mom happened to know about. And so, you know, hadnt, hadnt told us about it. And so we needed a, a much more systemic resolution than we might have thought going in, to, to try to ensure that the district could make sure that students would be safe. And again, theyre subject to federal monitoring. You know, we, we are there to make sure that that kids are ok. And im, im glad we could do it. But it, but when we think about school, i know yesterday was the first day of school in area School Districts here. And you know, we think about sending our kids to school, they have a new backpack and, you know, maybe have a new lunch box. You think about, i hope you like your teacher. You know, i would like you to step straight in class. We dont thinking necessarily that, that we have to say i, i wanna steal you against the things somebody might call you the things someone might say to you in school. Its not, thats not the image of what school should be and its not what Congress Promises your school wont be. And so im, im very grateful that we can be there when that happens. And i am enormously distressed by the routine now with which we are seeing that kind of harassment in school and and insufficient School Response and, and ill just say more. You didnt ask this, but ill just say more in this, in this time where, you know, theres, theres a lot of polarization about schools in particular. And a lot of polarization in, in our, our Public Discourse about, you know, how thick skinned people should be or, you know what we, what we should be expecting in school. And i think in those conversations, we dont talk enough, we dont think enough about what were asking our babies to hold and the toll it takes on them to, to have to navigate that while trying to write an essay, you know, while trying to learn history and, and that it makes me sick as a mom, it makes me sick as the chief civil rights enforcer in the nations schools and, and it makes me worry about our democracy. So this conversation hits close to home for me because my son just started first grade yesterday. And you know, i, i do worry about, you know, some of those things. So how do we, how do we address the routine . How do we, you know, how do we fix that and ensure that my son, other kids, you know, when theyre going back to school dont have to shoulder so much, you know, in the classroom and you know, can have environments that theyre forced to be in. You mentioned, they are compulsory but also respectful, safe, inclusive environments as well. Well, 19,000 of us have come to the office for civil rights. So, you know, thank you for that. And you know, thats certainly, thats one path. I think we, we also, were issuing a lot of resources to try to share what the law is and, and those are things that people can use themselves when advocating with the teacher, with the School District, with the school board, you know, with the, with the university that, that those are materials that people can have at the ready. And i will say certainly in my time when i in the bad years, when i couldnt be at the office for civil rights and my, my kids were in school and i did sometimes take a Dear Colleague letter and say i signed it. I just wanna make sure you saw it. This is actually what the law is. You know, just to make sure that, that my kids schools among other kids schools do fully comply. I also hope that we are active participants in our kids schooling. And i, i say our kids schooling, meaning that very broadly, if you dont have a kid in school, i hope youre volunteering in a school if you do have a kid in school, i hope youre volunteering in the school. You know, that, that we can be active participants in our School Communities and to and work to ensure that they are the communities that we say they will be right. And, and often when, when i in my office see discrimination, its not because an educator wanted to hurt a child. It was because somebody didnt know what the law was and didnt, didnt know how they were supposed to respond. And so lets help them to know and to make sure that, that we, we are fully responsive to our whole School Communities. What do you think is the biggest threat to civil rights and education right now . Well, im not gonna pick one, but the, the reality is Thomas Jefferson is famous for having said that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. And the, the reality is that we have to always be vigilant about civil rights anywhere in civil rights and schools in particular, every, every school year is a new opportunity to discriminate. And so we are always having to remind, always having to, to start again and to, to work on the class in front of us today to, to make sure that, that it is a safe and appropriate and lawful nondiscriminatory space. So one challenge is, its still a challenge, right . You know, that, that, that we, we have now six decades of promises about who we will be as a country and, and what, what the federal backstop against harm will be and weve never achieved that. So, so its, you know, that, that were, that were always working toward it is an, is an ongoing and i think very big challenge. The other very big challenges are that no child has a minute to waste of learning so nobody can withstand another day where their rights arent, arent met at school and theres no time so that the urgency is, is intense and the the new varieties of ways that we find challenge, you know, we, we are, we are in a pandemic still, you know, we are coming, we are coming through a change of that was unimaginable to us before five years ago. And, and we are living through that time, all of us struggling through that. And our and our kids are shaped by it. Their educators are shaped by it, their communities are shaped by it. So, you know, that is an an ongoing challenge and that the ways