Tag Archives: public education

Liz King: Civil Rights In Our Public Schools

One front on which the fight for racial justice is being waged is in the area of education. We have been led to believe that education is the great equalizer in this country, but the reality is that Black and Brown students have disparate experiences in school. For example, a national study from the Center for Civil Rights Remedies, issued in 2020, showed that African American students were more than four times as likely to be suspended from school and lost five times as many days of instruction due to disciplinary push-out. How do we stop this, and where is the accountability? This week on Sea Change Radio, we speak to Liz King, the Director of Education at the Leadership Council on Civil and Human Rights about efforts to fight discrimination in our nation’s public schools. She makes the case for doubling the Department of Education’s budget of the Office for Civil Rights, a primary agent in holding school systems accountable for injustices inflicted upon students on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc. She revisits the damage done to public education during the DeVos era, and offers some solutions to help protect students against discrimination in schools.Read the show transcript