Trump administration flips civil rights mission for schools – The Washington Post

Under Trump, the Education Dept. has flipped its civil rights mission

The administration is prioritizing allegations that transgender students and students of color are getting unfair advantages while a backlog of other cases grows.

Today at 6:00 a.m. EDT, 10 min

Workers leave the Department of Education building during a rain storm in Washington on May 21. (Wesley Lapointe/For The Washington Post)

By Laura Meckler

The Trump administration has upended civil rights enforcement at K-12 schools and colleges, prioritizing cases that allege transgender students and students of color are getting unfair advantages, while severe staff cuts have left thousands of other allegations unresolved.

The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights is so short-staffed that some attorneys have as many as 300 cases, making it impossible to devote attention to most of them, current and former employees said. Fewer cases are being closed, and 90 percent of those resolved were dismissed, typically without an investigation, up from 80 percent last year, according to data obtained by The Washington Post.

The office has a backlog of about 25,000 unresolved cases, up from about 20,000 when President Donald Trump took office, department officials said.

At the same time, under Trump, the civil rights office has announced investigations of at least 99 schools, often based on news coverage or complaints from conservative groups. As of early August, the administration had launched 27 directed investigations, probes that are opened without an outside complaint, court filings show.

These changes define the new tone and mission in the civil rights office, which is aggressively pursuing Trump’s agenda. In choosing its targets, the administration is not just picking different priorities than its predecessors; it’s flipping the interpretation of civil rights law in the opposite direction.

The Post interviewed 10 current and former employees of the office about the changes and the backlogs. Several spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid retribution.

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Under the Biden administration, the Office for Civil Rights focused on ensuring equal opportunity for students of color. Now, the office has opened several investigations into whether programs aimed at addressing inequities amount to illegal discrimination in favor of those students. Forty-five colleges, for instance, are being investigated for working with the PhD Project, a program that has tried to boost the number of Black, Hispanic and Native American students who earn doctorates in business.

In another example, last year the civil rights office required a New York school district to stop using its “Redskins” mascot, saying the moniker may have created a hostile environment for Native American students. This year, the same office found it is against the law to ban the mascots, calling it an attempt to erase the history of Native American tribes.

End of carouselUnder the Biden administration, the Office for Civil Rights focused on ensuring equal opportunity for students of color. Now, the office has opened several investigations into whether programs aimed at addressing inequities amount to illegal discrimination in favor of those students. Forty-five colleges, for instance, are being investigated for working with the PhD Project, a program that has tried to boost the number of Black, Hispanic and Native American students who earn doctorates in business.

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Seeing Things – Trump’s Adoration Of Putin – by Liza Donnelly

 

The above drawing was bought by The New Yorker during the Iraq war, I think, but they never ran it.

Trump said after the meeting with Putin in Alaska last week that Ukraine would have to make concessions because Russia was a more “powerful” country. He obviously does not understand the importance, and power, of a free, fairly elected democracy.

He is obsessed with what he preceives as power, and he wants it.

Today, following the disastrous “summit” in Alaska last Friday, Ukrainian President Zelensky came to the White House to meet with Trump, and he was accompanied by many European leaders: French President Macron; Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz; Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain; Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s prime minister; President Alexander Stubb of Finland; NATO’s secretary general, Mark Rutte; and Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Union’s executive arm. Solidarity in support of Ukraine.

Russia attacked Ukraine hours before Zelinsky’s meeting with Trump. Ten people killed, including a child.

Trump and Zelinsky had a press conference in the Oval Office before their meeting. Because Trump has stacked the WH press pool with pro-Trump reporters, the whole thing was a sham. Trump answered softball, flattering questions and talked about whatever he wanted to. He meandered around a lot of topics from “crime” in DC and how “even Democrats are calling me to thank me,” supposedly they had dinner out in the city and it felt safe. One reported asked about voting in the US and how Trump wants to get rid of mail-in ballots and machine voting; Trump said, “a little off-topic, but…” and then continued to rant about his plan to change how we vote in the US (he can’t do that). What he did say about the war was vague. He blamed the war on Biden, whom he said was stupid even 20 years ago. Trump said he’s ended six wars. It was nauseating to listen to.

I really hope something comes of this, but I’m not holding my breath. Putin will not agree to give back all the territory he has stolen. Zelinsky should not have to give anything to Russia, they are a sovereign nation. They were invaded. Trump will only do what Putin wants.

It’s rather amazing how we are seeing Trump’s complete adoration with Putin. The “summit” last week, which I did not write about, was full of clear body language from Trump as to his worship of Putin, beginning with clapping on a red carpet (!) as Putin arrived. His social media posts today about “leading a movement” to get rid of mail in voting came after he met with Putin. From the NY Times:

“Trump’s latest comments came after he said that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had discussed the issue during their summit on Friday in Alaska. Mr. Trump said in an interview with Fox News that the Russian leader had agreed with him that the 2020 election had been rigged in favor of Mr. Biden. “He said, ‘Your election was rigged because you have mail-in voting,’” Trump quoted Mr. Putin as saying.”

The Constitution vests the power to set the “times, places and manner” of elections with states, and it gives only Congress the ability to override state laws on voting.

Anyway, my guess is that this is another distraction to stop the press from talking about Epstein. However, I am happy to see the NY Times has an article today:

Republican’s Bid To Help Trump Move Past Epstein Falls Flat.

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Gene Collier: Fear and loathing at the Library of Congress | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

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Gene Collier: Fear and loathing at the Library of Congress

By Gene Collier, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, gcollier@post-gazette.com

Aug 17, 2025, 1:00 AM

Within the broader American consciousness, the Library of Congress comfortably occupies a position of towering anonymity, effortlessly and still purposefully avoiding the news cycle, sometimes for decades at a stretch.

Though it profiles as the staggeringly vast national deposit of knowledge, history, culture, and raw data, the Library’s habitual users tend to regard it with an esteem bordering on romance. With physical coordinates adjacent to the nation’s halls of power, the scholars and researchers and everyday Americans who visit frequently feel the intellectual weight of the place in the Thomas Jefferson Building’s main reading room, where you sit among some 70,000 volumes below the soaring coffered dome designed by sculptor Albert Weinert.

In the lantern of the dome is the mural known as Human Understanding, depicted as a female lifting from her eyes the veil of ignorance.

Yeah, well.

Not a great year for thinking institutions

It’s not been a great year for the Library of Congress, just as it hasn’t been a great year for the Kennedy Center, just as it’s about to become a dreary year for the Smithsonian, three institutions targeted by the Trump administration on what you might call suspicion of discomfiting ideology.

Carla Hayden, the 14th Librarian of Congress, the first woman and first African American to attain the position, was fired in May in a two-sentence email from the White House. It did not include the courtesy of an explanation, perhaps as her dismissal was simply inexplicable.

“We felt she did not fit the needs of the American people,” was the way White House press jouster Karoline Leavitt presented it to reporters. “There were quite concerning things that she had done at the Library of Congress in the pursuit of DEI and putting inappropriate books in the library for children.”

Oh please. The Library of Congress is essentially a research facility. Kids who aren’t 16 can’t do research on site. The argument over what kind of material does and doesn’t belong there was settled in the 1800s, centuries before diversity, equity, and inclusion became a ubiquitous MAGA boogeyman.

“It’s puzzling,” the fired Hayden said charitably to CBS Sunday Morning, “how things like inclusion are seen as a negative.”

But she knew what’s behind all this. Knows what the point is: “I think it’s to diminish opportunities for the general public to have free access to information and inspiration.”

Two months after Hayden walked the plank, things started disappearing from the Library’s web site, specifically the portion that contained the Constitution of the United States. A coding error was blamed, and the missing portions were restored, so there’s no point in identifying the parts that temporarily vanished.

Like that would stop me.

Disappearing the Constitution

Away from the Constitution went the part about foreign emoluments, which prohibits the president from accepting “any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatsoever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State,” so I’m sure that had nothing to do with fact that in May, Trump accepted a $400 million airplane from the Qatari government.

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Young San Franciscans aren’t drinking at bars. They’re at the library

Opinion // Emily Hoeven

Young San Franciscans aren’t going to bars. They’re hanging at the library

Is it any surprise that young people like me are forgoing moody bars for free books when a glass of wine can set you back $20?

By Emily Hoeven, Opinion Columnist, Aug 16, 2025

San Francisco Main Library, photographed in 2023. The library’s marketing and community engagement teams have made concerted efforts to capture the attention of millennial and Gen-Z audiences.

Stephen Lam/The Chronicle

It’s no secret that young people in San Francisco don’t frequent bars and nightclubs the way they once did.

This has left many perplexed. If the city’s dwindling population of 20-somethings isn’t drinking and dancing, what are they doing?

This 20-something has spent much of her time this summer at the San Francisco Public Library. And based on my observations, plenty of other young adults have, too.

No, we aren’t geeks. The library is cool.

To start, it’s a free third space — a perk that cannot be overstated in this ridiculously expensive city.

I recently visited the Chinatown library shortly before it closed at 8 p.m. There was barely an empty seat in the house. And it was impossible not to notice the sizable number of young adults.

Is it any surprise we’d forgo a moody bar when a glass of wine can set you back $20 these days?

Meanwhile, the library’s marketing and community engagement teams have made concerted efforts to capture the attention of millennial and Gen-Z audiences.

Their smart gamification strategy is working.

The library offers a tote bag as a prize for completing its Summer Stride program — which challenges residents to complete 20 hours of reading from June through August.

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Trump’s D.C. crackdown: Hundreds protest outside White House : NPR

National

Hundreds march to White House to protest Trump’s D.C. crackdown

August 16, 2025 9:03 PM ET

By Brian Mann

,

Chandelis Duster

Hundreds of protesters march to White House on Aug. 16, 2025. Brian Mann/NPR

WASHINGTON — Hundreds gathered peacefully in the nation’s capital on Saturday afternoon to protest President Trump’s attempted takeover of the city’s police department and deployment of  National Guard units alongside federal agents.

National

Three Republican-led states to send hundreds of National Guard troops to Washington

Starting with a rally in the northwest neighborhood of DuPont Circle, protesters chanted, “Shame” and “Trump must go now!” while demanding an end to the “crime emergency” that Trump declared in an executive order on Monday.

Protesters later marched to the White House, continuing to chant, as D.C. Metropolitan Police officers and National Park Service police looked on from a distance.

Law

Teenagers in Washington, D.C., say the federal police takeover makes them feel unsafe

Mason Weber of Maryland told NPR he attended the march because he was concerned that the deployment of troops is a “serious ethical and legal breach.”

“The most concerning thing about it is there’s been no check and balance of the systems of power,” Weber said. “Congress, if it comes to it, we expect to authorize it for longer.”

A protester stands in front of Metropolitan Police Department officers and National Guard troops in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 16, 2025. Brian/Mann

The demonstration took place two days after Attorney General Pam Bondi attempted to appoint Drug Enforcement Administration Administrator Terry Cole as an “emergency police commissioner” who would assume full operational control over D.C. police. Trump officials backed off that effort on Friday after D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb filed a lawsuit in federal court.

“The hostile takeover of our police force is not going to happen — a very important win for home rule today,” Schwalb told reporters late Friday.

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