'Equitable' grading earns Illinois superior school a federal civil rights complaint

Jeremiah Poff

June 03, 02:22 PM June 03, 02:24 PM

A conservative think tank led by previous Division of Education officers has filed a federal civil legal rights criticism from an Illinois higher school that announced it was implementing a grading process meant to equalize college student outcomes by race.

In a Wednesday letter to the U.S. Office of Education and learning, the president of the Protection of Independence Institute Robert Eitel requested that the department's Business office for Civil Rights open an investigation into Oak Park and River Forest college district close to Chicago just after it commenced instituting "equitable" grading practices at a district superior school.

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The district directed the college to reduce "guidelines, tactics, attitudes, and cultural messages that reinforce or fail to get rid of distinct results by race” when issuing grades, together with penalties for late assignments and absenteeism.

In the letter to the section, Eitel reported the faculty district's directive violated constitutional protections, as perfectly as Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.

"District 200’s declared intention to revise grading guidelines to benefit college students from distinct racial or ethnic backgrounds blatantly violates both of these [laws]," Eitel wrote in the letter.

In a press launch, Eitel, who worked at the Office of Education underneath former Training Secretary Betsy DeVos, stated that the district's directive would finally serve to damage pupils.

“[The district] seeks to implement a race-dependent grading plan that not only violates the Structure and civil legal rights legislation but also harms the extremely learners it is intended to assist,” Eitel claimed in a push release. “Instead of concentrating on the genuine difficulty at hand — the absence of schooling flexibility for these college students, who have to depend on a govt-operate K-12 school process that consistently fails them — the district desires to obfuscate by eliminating goal measures of tutorial accomplishment."

"This not only sets up learners for failure in daily life but also stigmatizes pupils of specific races by sending the information that without the aid of procedures that discriminate in opposition to their friends, they cannot do well," he reported. "We are asking OCR rapidly to examine and conclusion these unlawful racially discriminatory insurance policies.”