The Washington Post reported late Monday that the White House budget includes plans to “disband the Labor Department division that has policed discrimination among federal contractors for four decades.” It’s the latest in Trump’s ongoing weakening of civil rights, including reconsidering the Obama administration’s policing reforms and rescinding its transgender bathroom guidelines. “Under President Trump’s proposed budget,” the Post reported, “the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights—which has investigated thousands of complaints of discrimination in school districts across the country and set new standards for how colleges should respond to allegations of sexual assault and harassment—would also see significant staffing cuts.”
Remember when @realDonaldTrump asked ‘what do you have to lose’ from people of color? Well, here’s the answer https://t.co/SsdhaPtaFh
— Randi Weingarten (@rweingarten) May 30, 2017
Shameful. https://t.co/O0ePcqbXZ8
— DFER (@DFER_News) May 30, 2017
The Dog Whistle President wants to disband & defund civil rights initiatives that prevent discrimination in shelters, workplaces & schools. https://t.co/ILrtDy8tZr
— Rep. Barbara Lee (@RepBarbaraLee) May 30, 2017
The administration is framing these budget decisions as efficiencies—prudent cost-cutting measures that will even strengthen civil rights enforcement. But Vanita Gupta, the incoming head of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights who until January led the Justice Department’s civil rights division, isn’t buying it for a minute. As she told the Post, “there’s little question that it’s a rollback of civil rights across the board.”