Civil and Human Rights Coalition Applauds Court’s Gainful Employment Decision

WASHINGTON – Nancy Zirkin, executive vice president of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, issued the following statement applauding the D.C. Court of Appeals for rejecting a for-profit college group’s challenge to the administration’s gainful employment rule. Last year, The Leadership Conference joined a broad coalition of groups in filing an amicus brief supporting the gainful employment regulations:

“We applaud the D.C. Court of Appeals for rejecting the for-profit college industry’s attack on a common sense rule that says that substandard programs that leave their students with a lifetime of debt and no job should not receive billions of dollars in taxpayer money.

Career training programs that prey on vulnerable individuals, provide an inferior education, offer few job prospects, and result in high rates of student loan default cannot be allowed to operate with impunity. These regulations are imperative to reigning in the abuses of predatory for-profit institutions that target underserved populations of students—including veterans, students of color, and low-income students—with shameful and fraudulent recruitment practices.

We now urge the Department of Education to fully implement and vigorously enforce these regulations to protect students from programs that value profits over their students’ futures.”

Nancy Zirkin is the executive vice president of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition charged by its diverse membership of more than 200 national organizations to promote and protect the rights of all persons in the United States. The Leadership Conference works toward an America as good as its ideals. For more information on The Leadership Conference and its 200-plus member organizations, visit www.civilrights.org.