The Leadership Conference Education Fund held a national news briefing co-hosted by Ethnic Media Services, Jan. 18.

Experts and advocates in the civil rights field – Moderator Liz King, Senior Program Director Education Equity, The Leadership Conference Education Fund; Genevieve “Genzie” Bonadies Torres, Associate Director Education Opportunities Project, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law; Michaele N. Turnage Young, Senior Counsel, Legal Defense Fund; AJ Link, Policy Analyst, Autistic Self Advocacy Network; Morgan Craven, J.D., National Director of Policy, Advocacy and Community Engagement, Intercultural Development Research Association; and Whitney Pesek, J.D., Director of Federal Child Care Policy, National Women’s Law Center – previewed the education policy landscape in 2023, including the Supreme Court challenges to federal student loan debt cancellation and affirmative action in higher education, school discipline, threats to equal educational opportunity, and early childhood care and education.

(Above, l-r): Moderator: Liz King, Senior Program Director Education Equity, The Leadership Conference Education Fund; Genevieve “Genzie” Bonadies Torres, Associate Director Education Opportunities Project, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law; Michaele N. Turnage Young, Senior Counsel, Legal Defense Fund (LDF); A.J. Link, Policy Analyst, Autistic Self Advocacy Network (ASAN); Morgan Craven, J.D., National Director of Policy, Advocacy and Community Engagement, Intercultural Development Research Association (IDRA); and Whitney Pesek, J.D., Director of Federal Child Care Policy, National Women’s Law Center. (EMS)

Liz King started the proceedings as the moderator.

“The Leadership Conference Education Fund builds public will for laws and policies that promote and protect the civil and human rights of every person in the United States. The Education Fund was founded in 1969 as the education and research arm of the Leadership Conference on civil and human rights, our oldest and largest civil and human rights coalition of more than 230 national organizations.

“Today we are going to talk about the education and civil rights landscape in 2023. The civil and human rights community work together every day to protect all students from discrimination and ensure equal opportunity in education. We know that education policy decisions must be informed by the values, priorities, and experiences of marginalized people.

“For too long, people of color, native people, LGBTQ people, people with disabilities, immigrants, religious minorities, English learners, girls, low-income people, and other marginalized people have had their stories told by someone else. Their opportunity to attend a school that is warm, welcoming, and that prepares them for the full exercise of their social, political, and economic rights has been denied,” said King.

The discussion opened with Genevieve “Genzie” Bonadies Torres, who works with the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

“Covid-19 pandemic was an unprecedented health, social, and economic crisis,” said Torres.

“The Biden-Harris administration’s student debt relief plan is an urgently needed moral and lawful response. The plan provides targeted relief for over 40 million working and middle-class Americans whose family finances and entire livelihoods were devastated by the pandemic.

“Without this relief, millions of borrowers would be pushed past the financial brink when student loan repayments restart, and among them are millions of borrowers of color who we know have been hardest hit by the pandemic.

“This foreseeable spike in default would debilitate the credit of millions of borrowers blocking their ability to pay for necessities and preventing them from securing affordable housing among other adverse outcomes.

“The Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students Act or Heroes Act authorizes the Secretary of Education to mitigate these harms and yet opponents with politicized and special interests have launched several lawsuits challenging the legality of this amply Justified debt relief plan.

“Most of these lawsuits have been dismissed, but two have made their way to the Supreme Court. ‘Biden versus Nebraska’ and ‘The Department of Education versus Brown.’ The cases have been expedited with oral arguments scheduled for Feb. 28,” said Torres.

Torres spoke mainly about Black and Latinx communities.

When Siliconeer asked about South Asians, and how all of this was affecting the South Asian students, she replied, “Agreed that South Asians have an important stake in the debt relief program. The challenge is that currently there is no disaggregated data on AAPI groups with regard to student debt and so there is much less analysis on the effects.

“There is currently a major push to disaggregate such data – which would greatly illustrate what such groups face,” said Torres.

Michaele N. Turnage Young with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund was the next speaker.

Young, a senior counsel at the Legal Defense Fund, said, “Together with my colleagues, I represent 25 Harvard student alumni organizations, comprised of more than 16,000 Black, White, Latinx, Native and Asian American students and alumni.

“In both the Harvard case and the UNC case, the petitioner SFFA asks the court to change the law to ban the consideration of race and admissions. SFFA also alleges that both Harvard and UNC fail to comply with existing law,” said Young, and briefly explained the existing law.

According to Young, “Under 44 years, a settled precedent, it is legally permissible for colleges and universities to consider race as one of many factors in admissions.

“The Supreme Court held that quotas were impermissible back in 1978, so we’re not talking about quotas, what we are talking about is the limited consideration of race as one of 40 factors in the UNC case, and one of more than 100 factors in the Harvard case.

“UNC is the oldest public university in the country. As was the case with earlier challenges to the admissions policies of public universities, SFFA alleges that UNC violates the equal protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the U.S Constitution by considering race as one of many factors in admissions,” said Young.

“The equal protection clause of the 14th amendment applies to State actors like public universities. It does not apply to private actors. The Harvard case is the first challenge to a race-conscious admissions policy involving a private college to reach Supreme Court, but even though it is a private university, Harvard receives Federal funding.

“In the lawsuit, SFFA alleges that Harvard’s consideration of race as one of many factors in admissions violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits federally funded programs from engaging in racial discrimination.

“Unlike the UNC case, there’s also an allegation in the Harvard case that Harvard engaged in intentional discrimination against Asian American applicants.

“That claim is novel since in earlier admissions challenges, the claim was that the consideration of race and admissions harmed White applicants.

“The Supreme Court heard five hours of oral argument on Halloween in 2022.

“A September 2022 nationwide poll found that 87 percent of respondents agreed that diverse learning environments enriched the college experience for everyone and better prepare students of all backgrounds for success in our increasingly global multi-racial economy.

“All students deserve a fair shot at getting a quality education regardless of their income; where they grew up; or their racial or ethnic backgrounds; but unfortunately, while talent is everywhere in our country, opportunity is not.

“Too many students of color must contend with systemic and interpersonal racism that detrimentally affects their educational opportunities.

“It is important that colleges and universities continue to be allowed to consider the full context of applicants as experiences including the way that racism artificially depresses the prospects of many hard-working talented Black, Latinx, Native, and underserved Asian American students, so that everyone has a fair shot,” said Young.

A.J. Link from the Autistic Self-advocacy Network talked about threats to safe, healthy, and inclusive schools.

Morgan Craven from IDRA spoke about the attacks on equal educational opportunity that we have seen in the form of classroom censorship, the targeting of systemically marginalized students and communities, and challenges to school’s diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.

Whitney Pesek from National Women’s Law Center, a second-generation early educator, said, “This issue is very personal to me. At the Law Center we are advocates, experts, and lawyers who fight for gender justice, taking on issues that are central to the lives of women and girls.

“We drive change in the courts, in public policy, and in our society, especially for women facing multiple forms of discrimination.

“We use the law in all its forms to change culture and drive solutions to the gender and equity that shapes our society, and to break down the barriers that harm all of us, especially women of color, LGBTQ+ people, and women and families with low incomes.

“We are entering year four of a pandemic that pressure tested an early care and education system already in crisis, causing devastating results across the country for early educators and families alike,” said Pesek.

Read more on Siliconeer.