Schooling Dept.’s Civil Rights Chief Steps Down Amid Controversy

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Schooling Dept.’s Civil Rights Chief Steps Down Amid Controversy

That August, two days earlier than the division notified the Alliance Defending Freedom that its criticism could be investigated, a civil rights en


That August, two days earlier than the division notified the Alliance Defending Freedom that its criticism could be investigated, a civil rights enforcement director instructed employees members they “should have a draft for Ken’s evaluate tomorrow,” based on emails reviewed by The New York Instances.

A employees lawyer complied with an order to ship a letter to the group on Aug. 7 notifying them the case had been opened, however stated her workforce would “admire a dialogue in regards to the authorized principle and, a lot less complicated, the timeframe/scope of the investigation.” On Aug. 8, after the letter was issued, the enforcement director ordered members of the workforce to begin drafting a request for information, saying they’d “discuss sooner or later in regards to the exact authorized framework to use.”

After Mr. Bensing revealed the correspondence to The Washington Blade, Mr. Marcus ordered an investigation of the disclosures. Mr. Bensing confessed, and stated he confronted retaliation and left the division in January. His whistle-blower criticism, first reported by HuffPost, was dismissed. In Could, the division dominated that insurance policies in Connecticut that enable transgender college students to take part in athletics primarily based on gender identification violate federal civil rights regulation.

“They only interpreted the regulation the best way they needed to, and greater than that, they used these interpretations to assault individuals,” Mr. Bensing stated. “As a former civil servant, my worry is that this administration, and Ken Marcus particularly, has tarnished the status of our authorities a lot that nobody is ever going to have any religion in how our federal authorities interprets our civil rights protections ever once more.”

Mr. Marcus declined to debate the complaints towards him, however Schooling Division officers defended his dealing with of the Rutgers and Connecticut circumstances towards what they known as “recycled claims” by organizations against Mr. Marcus’s “longstanding work to struggle anti-Semitism.”

Different issues “relate to ongoing enforcement issues on which we can not remark,” the division stated in a press release, persevering with, “We’d word that the entire claims quantity to criticism that Assistant Secretary Marcus has been overly vigorous in his opposition to numerous types of discrimination.”

The division stated that Mr. Marcus’s resignation was not related to the complaints.

On July 9, Mr. Marcus stated on Twitter that he was returning to non-public life. The subsequent day, the Louis D. Brandeis Middle, the Jewish civil rights group he oversaw earlier than becoming a member of the administration, introduced that he would return as chairman of its board on Aug. 1.





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