via washingtonexaminer:
The Department of Education on Wednesday released new data showing that it has resolved nearly twice as many civil rights complaints as the Obama administration, a direct rebuttal of complaints from liberal civil rights groups that it has turned a blind eye to the issue.
What’s more, the department’s Office for Civil Rights has been working through the backlog of 7,800 K-12 and college cases left behind by Obama, resolving more cases than it is receiving.
In its first two years under Trump, the office has resolved an average of 16,000 complaints per year. Under Obama, the average was 8,200.
And in 2018 alone, the office said that it “resolved nearly as many sexual violence complaints that required corrective action to protect students’ civil rights as the prior administration resolved in all eight years combined.”
Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kenneth L. Marcus credited career civil servants in his office for the surge in resolving cases and the elimination of a “political agenda” under Obama that slowed the process down.
“We have been very conscientious about following the rule of law and applying the statutes in precisely the way they were written, but that has not meant less enforcement, it’s actually meant stronger enforcement. It means that we don’t bring weak, unsound cases, but it means that when students really are harmed, they are more likely to get support now,” Marcus told Secrets.