The Department of Education rescinded civil rights administrative guidelines for education in Career and Technical Education on Wednesday, and the change took effect Thursday. The move ends a 1979 review requirement that had directed states to check CTE programs for compliance on recruitment, admissions, disability services and financial aid.
Kimberly Richey on CTE
Kimberly Richey, the assistant secretary for civil rights at the Department of Education, said in a press release: "Today's announcement is a win-win for state agencies and schools that administer CTE programs—reducing unnecessary burdens on states while ensuring that critical civil rights protections remain firmly in place". The department said the requirement was unnecessary and duplicative.
The same day, the Department of Education said it would rescind disparate-impact provisions from Title VI regulations. Those provisions have been used as a tool to assess whether a policy falls unevenly on different groups, while the department said students who think they have faced discrimination or retaliation can file a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights.
Roxanne Garza and Title VI
Roxanne Garza, director of higher education policy at EdTrust, said: "It really shifts the burden from states [who were] doing proactive compliance checks to students and families to bring a discrimination case to the Department of Education". The 1979 guidelines were created under court order after a suit alleged the agency had failed to enforce Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in vocational education.
The department’s case for the rollback lines up with a broader shift in federal policy. Last year, Donald Trump issued an executive order directing his administration to invest in workforce programs and apprenticeships, and on July 1 short-term workforce programs running eight to 15 weeks became eligible for federal Pell Grants.
Linda McMahon and Pell Grants
Linda McMahon said in a press release: "The Trump Administration's postsecondary education agenda is straightforward: we should shift away from high-cost, low-value programs to low-cost, high-value programs". For students in trade and certificate tracks, the practical change is that states no longer have to run the periodic CTE review process on their own, so discrimination complaints may now start with families rather than state compliance checks. How many states or schools will change their CTE compliance practices after the rescission is not stated.
