Elected Officials Call on Bush to Support Equal Educational Opportunity
Feature Story by civilrights.org staff - 12/27/2002
In a December 20 letter to President Bush, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) called on the President to demonstrate his commitment to equal rights for all Americans, not just through rhetoric, but through support of substantive steps that promote racial and ethnic equality in this country.In the letter, Kennedy and Miller ask the Bush Administration to submit an amicus brief to the Supreme Court supporting the use of race and ethnicity in admissions in two cases, Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger. The two Congressmen also plan to join in a similar congressional amicus brief.
Another request is that the Administration reconsider a rule that the Department of Education has proposed that would exempt supplemental education providers from basic civil rights laws such as Title VI, which forbids discrimination on the basis of race and national origin, and Title IX, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender. This rule, if enacted, would allow a tutoring program to reject students because they are minorities or because they are girls.
The same day the Kennedy-Miller letter was issued, leaders from national civil rights organizations, including the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), the Human Rights Campaign, MALDEF, the National Women's Law Center, and People for the American Way, called on the White House to distance itself from Senator Trent Lott's views on the racist policies of the past by demonstrating a commitment to civil rights enforcement. Key action items included nominating moderate judges who are committed to enforcing federal civil rights laws, advancing new federal hate crime legislation, and supporting other initiatives that promote fairness and equity, including affirmative action.
