News

This section includes press releases and statements about education and racial justice issues.

First-of-its-kind Survey Reveals Alarming Impact of Immigration Enforcement on Public Schools

UCLA Civil Rights Project released the findings of a new national survey of educators revealing the alarming impact of immigration enforcement on teaching and learning in public schools. The study was presented at a policy forum at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., which also included presentations on the topic by immigration experts from the Migration Policy Institute and Brigham Young University.

Charter Schools Are Driving Segregation in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools

Amid a federal push for the expansion of charter schools, this study of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) in North Carolina describes how charter schools directly and indirectly contribute to resegregation in traditional public schools.

Study Finds Decline in School Segregation in DC's Rapidly Gentrifying Neighborhoods

Gentrification is a major force in urban neighborhoods across the country, and also transforming the nation’s capital. In 2011, Washington, DC, reached a non-black majority for the first time in more than a half century, and since 2000, the city’s white population has increased from just over a quarter to well over a third of the total population. The report examines whether the potential educational and social benefits that could come from greater racial and socioeconomic diversity are being realized in DC’s most rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods.

U.S. Commission for Civil Rights Holds Hearing on School to Prison Pipeline

On December 8, 2017, Daniel J. Losen, director of the CRP’s Center for Civil Rights Remedies, testified in Washington, DC, at a public briefing of the U.S. Commission for Civil Rights (USCCR). The briefing sought to “examine compliance with federal laws designed to protect students of color with disabilities from discrimination, and whether laws adequately protect these students from discriminatory disciplinary actions and policies.”

Troubling Trends for School Segregation in New Jersey

Amid demographic changes reshaping New Jersey’s student population, new research from the UCLA Civil Rights Project makes clear that the state has made little, if any, progress toward reducing the segregation of Black and Hispanic students in the state’s schools. More than one quarter of New Jersey Black students attend schools where less than 1 percent of students are white, and the number of Hispanic students attending these “apartheid schools” has doubled since 1989, and continues to increase. The large majority of Black and Latino students attend schools doubly segregated by both race and income.

Are There Workable Alternatives to Affirmative Action?

Since the courts -- as recently as the 2016 Fisher v. University of Texas II -- recognize that diversity is a compelling educational goal for campuses, a central question is whether or not there actually are any feasible nonracial ways to achieve this goal. The Civil Rights Project worked with the Educational Testing Service to commission research papers from leading scholars that address this central question.

CA Students Lose More Than 800,000 Instructional Days to Suspensions

The overuse of suspensions in California schools resulted in an estimated 840,656 days of lost instruction during the 2014-2015 academic year, or approximately 13 days for every 100 students enrolled. The is the first California study to quantify days of missed instruction due to suspension, rather than suspension rates.

Tough Choices Facing Florida's Governments

New research prepared for the Leroy Collins Institute at Florida State University by The Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles finds that dramatic changes in enrollment, court rulings and policy changes in recent decades have undercut desegregation efforts in Florida, leaving black and Latino students increasingly segregated in racially and economically isolated schools. The trend toward school segregation in Florida has increased and is more complex than 50 years ago.

Statement by Concerned Members of the White House Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanics

In this time of acute stress for Hispanic students and their families, the Commission, first established by President George H.W. Bush, stands ready to offer its expertise to the current administration. After 27 years of service it is about to cease to exist. Latino youth, now representing one-fourth of all U.S. students, and by 2050 one third, are the future of America. Our fate as a nation rests in large part on the fate of these young people. We do know how to improve the future for them, and thus for the country as a whole. The Commission has offered many research-based recommendations.

Statement on DACA Decision

The Civil Rights Project deeply regrets the President’s decision to terminate the DACA program that has given 800,000 young people -- who have done nothing wrong -- a right to participate lawfully in our society since 2012.

President Donald Trump’s pardon of former Sheriff Joe Arpaio undermines respect for law

The Civil Rights Project condemns the actions of Joe Arpaio and the action of Donald Trump in pardoning a convicted criminal who has shown no regard for the rights of Latinos in the United States.

Mexico City Summit Addresses Needs of Students Shared by U.S. and Mexico

Building on the success of last September’s ground-breaking UC Mexico Initiative research symposium in Mexico City, education officials, policy makers, researchers and educators are gathering again for a summit in the Mexican capital to discuss ways California and Mexico can collaborate to improve educational opportunities for students they share across borders. In a historic first, both the Secretary of Education for Mexico, Aurelio Nuño, and California’s Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson will attend the Summit.

Research Shows Reversal of Civil Rights Era Gains in Southern Schools

This report by Civil Rights Project at UCLA and the Center for Education and Civil Rights at Penn State finds intense segregation of Black and Latino students in the South with charter schools more segregated for Black and Latino Students. Segregation in the South is double segregation for blacks and Latinos, meaning that they are in schools segregated both by race and by poverty in a region where the share of students poor enough to receive free or subsidized lunches has soared to nearly 60% of all students. Both segregation by race and poverty, research shows, are systematically linked to weaker opportunities and student outcomes.

National Assoc of State Boards of Ed encourages states to add school discipline indicator to state-wide accountability plans

The National Association of State Boards of Education (NASBE) issued a policy brief encouraging states to add a school discipline indicator to their state-wide school accountability plans required by the Every Student Succeeds Act. The brief, co written by CCRR Director Daniel Losen, was based on research findings demonstrating large disparities by race and disability status and linking high suspension rates to negative academic and life outcomes.

New Research Shows Increasing School Segregation in South

Research, to be released on Wednesday, May 24, 2017, by the UCLA Civil Rights Project and the Center for Education and Civil Rights at Penn State finds reversal of Civil Rights era gains, increase in intense segregation for Black and Latino students in the Southern region

Segregation Prevalent in Indiana Schools

Although Indiana has seen rapid growth in the enrollment of non-White students, overall interactions between White and non-White students remain low. For example, the average Black student in Indiana attends a school where 68 percent of the students are non-White, while the average White student in Indiana attends a school where 19 percent of the students are non-White.

MA Students Missed More Than 156,000 Days of Instruction Due to Discipline

This research study shows that the overuse of suspensions in the Commonwealth’s schools is harming educational opportunities for all students, but with the burden impacting black students and students with disabilities more than other groups. The study is the first ever to quantify the school-level days of missed instruction due to discipline, reporting both the black/white gap and the impact on students with disabilities. Researchers find 38 schools averaged greater than 100 days of missed instruction for every 100 enrolled due to suspensions. Black students and students with disabilities missed the most days and most missed instruction was in response to minor misbehavior.

School Suspensions Cost California Billions

New report shows that suspensions have high costs in nearly every district in California. Researchers find that more suspensions leads to lower graduation rates, lower tax revenues, and higher taxpayer costs for criminal justice, welfare, health care and more economic ramifications.

New Report Shows Schools in the Nation’s Capital Remain Intensely Segregated; Charter Schools are most segregated in the City

The UCLA Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles today released a new research report on segregation and its alternatives in Washington D.C. showing that despite the sharply increasing diversity of the nation’s capital, generation after generation of African American students in Washington D.C. have attended intensely segregated schools and still do in a city with a wider racial achievement gap than any state.

Educational Needs of Students We Share Go Unmet. Symposium examines educational experiences of students who attend school on both sides of the border. Seeks solutions to improve learning opportunities.

The United States and Mexico share hundreds of thousands of students, but their educational needs too often go unmet and their potential is imperiled because of poor communication, bureaucratic challenges, language barriers and inadequate and unequal educational opportunities on both sides of the border, said educational researchers from both countries at a research symposium in Mexico City.