56. Fully fund the U.S. Department of Education and its Office for Civil Rights (OCR).
Here’s what the federal government can do:
- Congress should fully fund the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR).
- OCR should robustly enforce civil rights laws, providing guidance, data, and technical assistance to support compliance, and intervene thoroughly and expeditiously when violations occur.
Congress must increase funding for OCR to better fulfill its duty to ensure equal access to education at all federally funded institutions.
The U.S. Department of Education and OCR require additional funding in order to better serve students across the entire nation. OCR is tasked with investigating complaints of discrimination and determining whether federal civil rights laws such as Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 have been violated.
Institutions of higher education and OCR must robustly investigate all reported incidents of discrimination and enforce appropriate remedies. While OCR received more than six times as many complaints in 2022 than in 1981, the number of OCR staff was cut in half over that same time period.[i]
It is imperative — following the Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) v. University of North Carolina (UNC)/Harvard case especially — that OCR is resourced to uphold the civil rights of all students in higher education.
[i] See: “Protecting Civil Rights, Advancing Equity, Report to the President and Secretary of Education,” U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights. https://www2.ed.gov/about/reports/annual/ocr/report-to-president-and-secretary-of-education-2013-14.pdf.