OCR and Justice Release Joint Guidance on Voluntary Efforts to Promote Racial Diversity

The Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division and the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights have just released new guidance on how educators can lawfully pursue voluntary policies to achieve diversity or avoid racial isolation.

The Dear Colleague letter can be reached at: http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/letters/colleague-201111.html. As Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez stated, "Diversity is a remarkable source of strength."

A copy of the joint guidance follows.

Dear Colleague Letter
OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY
U.S. Department of JusticeCivil Rights Division
U.S. Department of EducationOffice for Civil Rights
More Resources
Dear Colleague LetterPDF (136K)
Guidance ESEPDF (290K)
Guidance PSEPDF (124K)

December 2, 2011

Dear Colleague:

Today, the United States Department of Education (ED) and the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) are jointly issuing guidance that explains how educational institutions can lawfully pursue voluntary policies to achieve diversity or avoid racial isolation within the framework of Titles IV and VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and current case law. The guidance is presented in two documents, one for elementary and secondary schools and the other for postsecondary institutions. This guidance replaces August 2008 letters titled “The Use of Race in Assigning Students to Elementary and Secondary Schools” and “The Use of Race in Postsecondary Student Admissions” issued by ED’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR). Concurrent with the issuance of this guidance, the August 2008 letters are withdrawn.
The new guidance documents review three key Supreme Court rulings on the use of race by educational institutions, and provide examples of options that schools and postsecondary institutions may wish to consider in structuring programs that lawfully further diversity or reduce racial isolation. Both guidance documents provide examples of different educational contexts within which institutions may permissibly consider race to pursue their compelling objectives. For example, the elementary and secondary guidance discusses school districts’ options in areas such as student assignment, student transfers, school siting, feeder patterns, and school zoning. Similarly, the postsecondary guidance provides examples of how colleges and universities can further diversity in contexts including admissions, pipeline programs, recruitment and outreach, and mentoring, tutoring, retention, and support programs.
OCR and DOJ are available to provide technical assistance, and welcome questions about the application of this guidance to educational institutions. To submit questions or receive technical assistance, please contact the OCR regional office for your state or territory at http://wdcrobcolp01.ed.gov/CFAPPS/OCR/contactus.cfm. To contact DOJ for assistance, please contact the Educational Opportunities Section at (202) 514-4092, (877) 292-3804, or education@usdoj.gov.
Sincerely,
/S/
/S/
Russlynn Ali
Assistant Secretary
Office for Civil Rights
U.S. Department of Education
Thomas E. Perez Assistant Attorney General Civil Rights Division U.S. Department of Justice
Attachments

http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/letters/colleague-201111.html

Obama's civil rights nominee should be ready for a fight

Thomas Perez will be put through the grinder for the rights post, 'arguably the most difficult position to fill in the federal government when it comes to Senate confirmation,' one official says.By Paul WestApril 5, 2009Reporting from Washington — In the annals of capital partisanship, their names are boldfaced: the candidates for America's highest civil rights post who never got confirmed.During the last Democratic administration, conservatives succeeded in blocking Senate approval of Lani Guinier and Bill Lann Lee to head the civil rights division at the Justice Department.Now they're gearing up to put Thomas Perez, a Maryland lawyer and President Obama's nominee for the job, through the grinder. Senate sources have predicted that the Harvard Law graduate will be confirmed, but history suggests it won't be without a fight."This is arguably the most difficult position to fill in the federal government when it comes to Senate confirmation," said Roger Clegg, a former official in the civil rights division. "Both sides feel so strongly about the issues that the division handles."The more than 300 lawyers in the division enforce rights laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, sex, disability, religion and national origin. Lawyers also oversee voting-rights cases, which are likely to increase after next year's census and the resulting redistricting.In interviews, current and former lawyers at the Justice Department and on Capitol Hill said that under Obama and Perez, the civil rights division is likely to step up prosecutions of police misconduct and racial profiling.The administration also may promote legislation that would give the division added responsibilities to make voter registration more uniform and make it easier for people to vote.Other areas that may get renewed attention include conditions in prisons, mental health facilities and nursing homes. The last area could mesh with Perez's work as a University of Maryland law professor on the relationship between healthcare and civil rights.Perez, 47, currently serves as Maryland's labor secretary. And his selection to be the nation's leading civil rights enforcer came as a surprise.Some Latino civil rights advocates reacted angrily, viewing Perez as a replacement for a highly regarded Mexican American civil rights lawyer in Los Angeles who had been expected to get the nomination. Cruz Reynoso -- the first Latino on the California Supreme Court, who also helped lead a review of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights for the Obama transition -- expressed concern that the president had withdrawn the expected appointment of Thomas Saenz, an advisor to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, to avoid a confirmation fight over immigration issues....
Affirmative action, a focus of the confirmation fights of the 1990s, could also play a role."I was just reading a law review that Perez has written that was very favorable toward the use of racial preferences," said Clegg, a conservative who advocates colorblind public policies. Obama "has indicated that he's not entirely comfortable with racial preferences," Clegg said. Perez "may be more liberal than the president himself is."

Full Story: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la-na-perez5-2009apr05,0,6405519.story

Tom Perez to be nominated as Assistant AG for Civil Rights

The Washington Post
(Reported in: First 100 Days from Smart Brief)
Posted at 6:53 PM ET on Mar 13, 2009
By Scott Wilson

President Obama announced Friday that he would nominate Tom Perez, a former member of the Montgomery County Council, for the position of assistant attorney general for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Justice.A prominent civil-rights lawyer, Perez now serves as secretary of Maryland's Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation, which enforces workplace safety laws, among other regulations.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/03/13/obama_rounds_out_staffs_at_age.html