• OCR is comprehensive, but…

• The law is vague, not properly defined for the educational setting

• When largely left up to the recipient, they’ve proven ill-equipped

  • How is UCLA handling last April?

  • UCLA is not holding themselves accountable

    • The house committee was weak and useless and Block gave vague promises of change

    • Nothing UCLA is doing to hold themselves accountable looks like what other schools going through resolution agreements are doing

• History of incidents not being resolved in a timely manner (behind)

  • Data

  • USC case

• Many incidents occurring now (over-burdened)

  • Data

  • Relate it to Campus SaVE

• Issues persist even with involvement

  • Michigan

• How can direct amendments and regulatory updates address the above

  • proactive not reactive

OCR Policy and Guidance

• Try to make a case for why the current standard for Title VI is not enough

• Title VI Definition

  • “Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination based on race, color, or national origin in programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance. Title VI states that:

  No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.”

• Nov 16, 2023 OCR press release

  • This predates the protests, proactive measures could already have been in place

  • List of open Title VI shared ancestry investigations, the list is being maintained and is up to date.

  • Records related to Title VI Shared Ancestry or Ethnic Characteristics Investigations

    • “The Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has determined that some records related to OCR’s investigations of elementary, secondary, and post-secondary institutions for alleged discrimination involving shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics, filed in or after October 2023, are ones for which multiple Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests have been (or are likely to be) received.”

  • All pending OCR civil rights cases at elementary-secondary and post-secondary institutions that are currently being investigated can be found here

  • OCR recent resolution search database can be found here

• “Education and Title VI” page of the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights

• DOE Race, color, or national origin discrimination overview

• Title IX and Title VI links fact sheet. Includes a PDF on coordinator duties.

• November 7, 2023 (see footnotes for statistics sources)

  • “As we witness a nationwide rise in reports of hate crimes1 and harassment, including an alarming rise in disturbing antisemitic incidents and threats to Jewish, Israeli, Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian students on college campuses and in P-12 schools, the fulfillment of school communities’ federal legal obligations to ensure nondiscriminatory environments have renewed urgency.”

  • 2022 FBI Hate Crime Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice

• Dec. 14, 2023, Sec of Education Miguel Cardona announced an investigation Monday into antisemitic and Islamophobic activities on UCLA’s campus.

  • “The Department of Education announced an investigation into other universities alongside UCLA, including UC San Diego, Stanford University, the University of Washington and Rutgers University. Nearby community college Santa Monica College was added Dec. 4 to the investigation.

  Other notable schools under investigation from November are Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania.”

• One dated May 25th 2023 covered discrimination based on shared ancestry and ethnic characteristics

  • “As we witness a nationwide rise in reports of antisemitic harassment, including in schools, I write to remind you of schools’ legal obligation under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VI) to provide all students, including Jewish students, a school environment free from discrimination based on race, color, or national origin, including shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics.”

  • Talks about fact sheet “Protecting Students from Discrimination Based on Shared Ancestry or Ethnic Characteristics”

  • “Schools must take immediate and appropriate action to respond to harassment that creates a hostile environment. OCR generally finds that a hostile environment exists where there is harassing conduct that is sufficiently severe, pervasive, or persistent so as to interfere with or limit the ability of an individual to participate in or benefit from the services, activities, or privileges provided by a school.”

• OCR policy guidance, bullying and harassment

  • May 7th 2024: Lays out some applicable scenarios,

    • Chants

    • Symbology

    • Resistance is justified

    • Obvious discrimination

    • There’s also non-affiliate conduct that applies i.e. “shoving,” “terrorist”

  • July 2, 2024, harassment based on race, color, or national Origin.

• May 2, 2024

  • “The U.S. Department of Education was asked to investigate Thursday whether civil rights were violated at UCLA where hundreds were arrested following several days of protest by pro-Palestinian and counter demonstrators.”

• UCLA has 8 pending Title VI Investigations from as early as 01/03/2020

• There are UCLA (Title IX) cases from as early as 2014 still pending with OCR

• Newsworthy incidents—

• 9/23 Michigan pro-Palestinian students arrested

• August 5, 2020 Statement, Rose Ritch Resignation Statement From Undergraduate Student Government

  • forward article

  • July 26, 2022 Inside Higher Ed

• David Myers—

  • USAC overreach, 2014

  • Rachel Beyda case at UCLA, 2015

  • Beginning of conflict, 2023

  • Antisemitic imagery, 2024

• Resolution agreements—

• UCSD 2012

• Brown University July 8, 2024

Notes

Incorporate OCR Policy and Guidance section from “Title VI Notes” and other relevant posts (campus SaVE and relevant OCR Dear Colleague Letters), “Try to get this right…”

• Living in a digital age encourages discrimination-related harassment and bullying (what is the Title IX jurisdiction there, believe it is covered)

• Michigan resolution agreement

  • The system has been flooded with reports and chaos ensued

  • Might be a good place to bring up confusing reporting mechanisms (SCU)

• As indicated by the above, Title IX goes farther than Title VI, it has made incredible progress

  • Student safety was the main driver of progress

  • Student safety is now a major concern with respect to Title VI

• No school has made an effort to identify or willingly admit there are systemic issues

  • The UC’s continue to create offices and blame students

    • No masking rules

    • No encampment rules

    • Office of Campus Safety

  • No effort has been made as a matter of safety or accountability to help the students directly

• Title VI Dear Colleague letters call for “administrative guidance”

  • There is none coming from UCLA

  • They were vague calling encampment activity “unlawful behavior”

  • Where is the administrative guidance? They still have given no clarity on time, place, and manner, and on what behavior broke what laws and code of conduct

  • They said they would go into it during “orientation training,” something that is optional and you have to pay to attend