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Labor organization efforts grew following the pandemic in the United States at tech companies, automakers, and even higher education institutions. This brief examines unionization trends at private colleges and universities from 2007 to 2023, revealing staff as the main force behind unionization attempts, followed by contingent faculty. Major unions like the SEIU and the AFL-CIO play significant roles in representing college and university employees. This study underscores the importance of understanding historic unionization efforts, shedding light on often overlooked staff categories like maintenance and security.

"Brown v. Board of Education" held that the educational systems of seventeen states that mandated segregated schools violated the Constitutional guarantee of equal protection. The decision helped set off the civil rights revolution. However, after so many years of backlash, schools of the South are dramatically less segregated than what existed before "Brown." "Brown" brought to a head the conflict between the professed belief in equal opportunity and the reality of clearly inferior schools for Black and Latino children. Many whites saw the desegregation changes that the courts and federal agencies ordered as a threat. From a civil rights perspective, the battle was for connecting young people of color to transformative educational opportunities. Opponents mobilized and they attacked the courts and the law. This report examines the changing patterns of segregation and diversity in U.S. public schools, updating earlier work with contemporary and historical data. At a time when U.S. social and political polarization are severe and race relations are dangerously strained, schools matter even more.

Efforts to strengthen the pipeline to college degree completion have focused on improving college access and providing academic, social, and financial supports to students post-enrollment. This paper explores one facet of postsecondary education that has served as a barrier to both college access and success--developmental education--which has proven to exacerbate racial inequities in academic progress in higher education and has effectively decreased college access for low-income students and students of color. After more than a decade of trying to tackle the developmental education problem indirectly through basic skills-related initiatives, task forces, and success initiatives, the California state legislature passed Assembly Bill 705 (AB705) in 2017, which directed colleges to replace standardized placement tests with multiple measures of high school performance to determine college readiness. In this paper, the authors describe the research that prompted developmental education reform approaches nationally and in California, describe the efforts in California that led to the passing of AB705, and summarize research on its implementation and outcomes. Building on analysis of the research, the paper concludes with five key practice and policy recommendations for California community college leaders as they move toward realizing a civil rights agenda for college access and success in the next 25 years: (1) Address faculty and practitioners' beliefs; (2) Move from structural to instructional reform; (3) Improve data accessibility, reporting, and accountability; (4) Expand equitable college access opportunities for students in high school; and (5) Address barriers facing English learners.

Despite the crucial role early educators play in young children's development, the field has always struggled with poor compensation and inadequate support (McLean et al., 2021). The persistent undervaluation of the ECE sector and the labor provided by the nearly all-female workforce can be traced back to its racist roots, when enslaved Black women were forced to care for White children (Center for the Study of Child Care Employment, 2022a; Lloyd et al., 2021). This report shows how racism continues to affect the ECE workforce. Racial disparities take many forms, from inequities in racial and ethnic representation across provider types and job roles to disparities in compensation. Black and Latina educators, for example, routinely experience lower wages than their peers. Asian and Black educators tend to hold higher levels of educational degrees compared to other groups, but their credentials do not necessarily lead to job advancement or higher pay. Systemic racism is most often understood as a form of racism that is "pervasively and deeply embedded in systems, laws, written or unwritten policies, and entrenched practices and beliefs that produce, condone, and perpetuate widespread unfair treatment and oppression of people of color" (Braveman et al., 2022, p. 171). Yet, systemic racism also fosters an absence of systems or processes that provide recourse for discrimination or protection from inequities. A transformed system could begin to repair the current injustices. (1) For example, if early care and education were treated as a public good, programs would be funded to reflect the true cost of care; (2) A salary scale driven by a combination of years of experience and education would reduce the vast pay gaps, especially between Black educators and their peers of other races and ethnicities with similar education and experience; (3) Professional pathway programs and mentorship initiatives could be designed specifically to expand access to leadership roles for underrepresented communities. Efforts like apprenticeships, degree-completion programs, and fellowships have proven incredibly successful (Copeman Petig et al., 2019; Kipnis et al., 2012; Smith et al., 2023). However, such opportunities are not built into ECE systems, but are often pilots, demonstration projects, or very limited in reach (Malone et al., 2021); and (3) Data to pinpoint disparities could track how or if they are reduced over time. North Carolina, for example, routinely funds robust data collection, but it is unclear if and how identified disparities are acted on (Child Care Services Association, 2020). [Additional funding for this report was provided by the Blue Shield of California Foundation.]

In the largest U.S. metropolitan areas, suburban school districts enroll 14.4 million students, far more than the 6 million students enrolled in the same metros' urban districts. In fact, students enrolled in the suburban school districts surrounding the 25 largest metropolitan areas represent roughly 30% of the nation's entire public school enrollment. Suburban growth has occurred alongside the creation of a segregated, metropolitan society through policy, law and practice. Discriminatory loan practices, federal highway construction, site selection for subsidized housing and exclusionary zoning are examples of how racial discrimination permeated to origins suburban society. State and federal governments are dominated politically by those representing suburban constituents too often eager to maintain an exclusionary status quo. As shifting populations change suburban school enrollment, education policy trends formerly confined to urban districts have spread to suburban ones. Many suburban school districts have experienced growth in the charter school sector, as well as a rash of school closures. Suburban schools and districts reflect broader societal problems, paradigms, and possibilities. This paper draws on federal enrollment data from the nation's largest 25 metros from 2011-2020 to descriptively analyze suburban school enrollment and segregation at the school district-level, seeking to understand different district contexts and their relationship to student segregation.

"Discriminatory censorship laws" regulate classroom conversations about racism, gender identity, and other topics targeted in the backlash against efforts toward inclusive classrooms and curricula. This policy brief examines the proliferation of these laws and their impact on K-12 schools, including the creation of hostile learning environments that expose students and educators to a heightened threat of race- and sex-based harassment and to formal sanctions and social ostracization. The laws also foster a climate of fear and anxiety among educators, effectively coercing them to shun critical inquiry and thought on targeted topics and more generally. The result is a curriculum that subtracts comprehensive, culturally attentive content and adds whitewashed and heteronormative narratives of American history and culture. The brief highlights the need for laws, policies, and practices that promote inclusive learning environments that encourage critical thinking, and offers recommendations to constructively counter discriminatory censorship.

On May 15, 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division issued a fact sheet highlighting examples of the Division's recent work to protect students and combat segregation and race-based discrimination in schools. The Civil Rights Division has worked for decades to ensure equal educational opportunities for all of America's schoolchildren, as promised by the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark decision in "Brown v. Board of Education." May 17, 2024 marks the 70th anniversary of the "Brown" decision's fundamental guarantee that education is a "right that must be made available to all on equal terms," and the Division renews its enduring commitment to confront school segregation and race discrimination through enforcement of Title IV and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Research indicates racism is a persistent and pervasive presence in the United States. Wealth gaps between White, Asian, Black and Latinx families are wide and expanding (Parker, Horowitz, & Mahl, 2016). Since wealth for the middle class is often maintained in real estate, the long and continuing legacy of discrimination in housing markets has significantly disadvantaged communities of color (Rothstein, 2017). Research has demonstrated that racism continues to influence the housing market by way of discrimination in home appraisals and subprime lending practices (Korver-Glenn, 2018). Studies have also thoroughly demonstrated bias in hiring practices -- resumés with stereotypically Black or Latinx names earn significantly fewer interviews than resumés with stereotypically White names (Pager, Bonikowski, & Western, 2009). Leveling the racial playing field necessitates a reduction of racial prejudice and supporting policies like reparations and affirmative action, the latter policies having received scant support in public opinion polls and elections primarily due to White skepticism (Conroy & Bacon Jr., 2020). Schools have long existed as a means of maintaining democracy in the United States and, given the centrality of race relations to the success of democracy, this paper suggests that schools can be called upon to address racism as well. As such, this paper looks to our rapidly diversifying nation and asks: "What would it take to move closer to meaningfully addressing the legacy of racism in the United States, and what role might schools play in this process?"

This report catalogues the growth of the modern mixed-race population in the United States and highlights the many complications this population presents for the future of civil rights law and policy. What is most distinctive of today's mixed-race individuals is their assertion of a mixed-race identity which they claim embodies a different experience compared to those who report to be a single race such as "white" or "black." This emphasis on personal identity presents a new dimension that must be considered in the development of new civil rights policy. The authors argue that policymakers and other practitioners need to be more aware of the complexities involved with defining a mixed-race population because a limited understanding will result in policy that could unintentionally undercut the very values civil rights policy seeks to uphold. Policy recommendations for reconciling how the growth of a mixed-race population may challenge the existing framework of civil rights are provided. [For the executive summary, see ED630504.]

Two-way dual language immersion programs (TWDL) aim to integrate English speakers and speakers of a partner language in the same classroom to receive content instruction in both languages. Stated goals include bilingualism and biliteracy, high academic achievement, and sociocultural competence. In school districts aiming to reduce segregation, TWDL programs can also integrate students from diverse linguistic, racial, and economic backgrounds, though mounting evidence shows equitable integration does not always happen. Using school-level enrollments and district data on TWDL program growth from 2000 to 2021, this paper describes enrollment and segregation patterns across Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) elementary schools with TWDL. We find elementary schools with TWDL programs are enrolling increasing numbers of racially, linguistically, and economically marginalized students, but the increasingly uneven sorting of students among TWDL schools demonstrates limits on the potential for intergroup contact.

Colleges and universities have become increasingly concerned that requiring standardized test scores for admission is an impediment to campus diversity, and these objections have grown with the recent focus on societal inequities. In addition, the pandemic led to the cancellation of test administrations, which, in turn, caused many institutions to eliminate admissions test requirements. These developments present an opportunity to reconsider the role of college admissions testing. The report begins by recounting the history of college admissions in the US, the relationship of admissions tests to intelligence testing and military testing, and the motivations for developing standardized exams to replace the admissions methods used at the turn of the twentieth century. Next, it describes the college admissions tests used today, along with their role in the admissions process, their advantages and limitations, and the ongoing debates about their fairness. Finally it discusses the future of admissions and admissions testing and end with a discussion of the concept of meritocracy as it applies to college admissions.

The bachelor's degree remains a fundamental path to economic opportunity in the United States. Critical for policymakers, then, is ensuring equitable access to such benefits--a task often constrained by long-standing structural barriers. One of the most obvious structural impediments for bachelor's degree-aspirants in California (CA) is the current version of the CA Master Plan for Higher Education. With a robust public higher education system that is continually forced to adapt to demographic shifts and evolving labor markets, California is an especially important region for exploring the future of postsecondary education and economic growth. This report describes what we currently know about the California Community College Baccalaureate (CCB) program that was launched in 2017 and expanded in 2021. The program shows promising outcomes and that state education leaders can leverage existing components of the state's education ecosystem to meet the economic and social demands of 40 million diverse Californians and to close existing racial equity gaps. This report was published as part of a new research series, "A Civil Rights Agenda for California's Next Quarter Century," in commemoration of the Civil Rights Project's 25th anniversary.

This document includes the "FY 2022 Annual Performance Report" and "FY 2024 Annual Performance Plan." The "FY 2022 Annual Performance Report" provides narrative and data on the US Department of Education's progress toward the strategic goals and objectives outlined in its "Fiscal Years 2022-2026 Strategic Plan" (ED625432) and the "FY 2024 Annual Performance Plan" details the Department's planned strategies and activities to achieve those strategic goals objectives.

In New York State, private and religious schools are required to offer a curriculum "substantially equivalent" to what is available in local public schools. Substantial equivalency--which has been law for nearly 130 years--allows parents to direct the education of their children by enrolling them in the school of their choice, while also ensuring that schools meet certain standards. However in September 2022, the New York State Board of Regents amended the regulations governing the law's enforcement. The amendments follow a multiyear effort on the part of a small group of activists who voiced concerns over a particular group of religious schools in New York City and a few other counties in the state. These schools serve the "Haredi" Jewish community, also described as ultraorthodox. There are critical public-policy and legal issues within the debate over Haredi schools and the state's substantial-equivalence requirement, particularly how to weigh the right to religious freedom enshrined in the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. This issue brief will explore those issues and attempt to place them in the context of the communities that overwhelmingly choose these schools for their children.

Racial preferences, as practiced in academia and elsewhere, by definition, discriminates against individuals based on their race. Radical academics and writers, including the founders of critical race theory, have long supported the use of race as a predominant factor in postsecondary and graduate school admissions. If the Court rules as it should that postsecondary institutions cannot use race as a factor in school admissions, that decision will be a crucial step away from racial prejudice and towards meritocracy and colorblindness--two pillars of the civil rights movement. Other college officials might want to abandon racial prejudice in school operations, but biased college accreditors may coerce them into maintaining discriminatory policies. Accreditors, however, also contribute to the prejudicial environment in college admissions through their accrediting requirements. Lawmakers must reform the postsecondary accreditation system. What may sound like merely a set of bureaucratic reforms to the accrediting process would be, in fact, a long-overdue reform of higher education, improving student access to institutions, allowing colleges to make decisions in students' best interests instead of under pressure from federal rules, and provide more transparency for students and families in the college application process.

In the United States, the right to education resides in the states. Every state constitution affirmatively requires state legislatures to maintain and support a system of elementary and secondary schools open to all resident children. Although the language of these constitutional provisions varies, in all cases they mandate states, through their elected officials, to guarantee all children access to a free public education. The states, and not the federal government, are constitutionally obligated to provide education to the nation's school children. In striking down state laws that compelled racially segregated schools, the United States Supreme Court in its 1955 "Brown v. Board of Education II" ruling made clear that the opportunity for an education provided by the states "is a right which must be made available to all on equal terms." Yet consensus on a working definition of the "right" to "equal educational opportunity" and what is essential to deliver it has been elusive. Lacking a common understanding, civil and education rights advocates often fragment into separate camps: those pushing for equity in segregated schools and those calling for school desegregation as the only feasible road to equal opportunity. This brief proposes a way to move past the dichotomy of equity or diversity as the path to equal educational opportunity.

The purposes of this policy document are: (1) to encourage public-school instruction conducive to developing skills and gaining factual knowledge necessary for students' future success as critical thinkers, citizens, and leaders of the state of [STATE]; (2) to protect children against the unwarranted and harmful influence of politicized classroom instruction; (3) to provide a safe, healthy, supportive, respectful, and developmentally appropriate learning environment; and (4) to bolster parents' fundamental rights to direct the upbringing, education, and care of their children.

This document is the first of a semi-annual "stocktaking" publication to analyze various political trends impacting education and young people. Bellwether hopes to help the field separate signal from noise and provide context around various issues and trends affecting the sector. The impact of COVID-19 school closures on schools and students, which are only starting to be understood, was an obvious starting place for the first project. But while the pandemic has dominated attention for the past several years, it is not the only issue in American life. Other issues are stressing Americans, such as mass shootings, inflation, mental health needs, and racism, to name a few. Because schools are institutions that transfer culture and norms and one of the last public venues where Americans regularly come together, schools are often battlegrounds for society's various debates. In this report, the authors focus on six issues related to pandemic disruptions and broader cultural debates: (1) School Enrollment; (2) Student Achievement; (3) Student Discipline; (4) Guns and School Safety; (5) Race and Racism; and (6) LGBT Rights. Each topic begins with an overview of the data and research at a societal level, then takes a closer look at how it is affecting the education sector and how schools are navigating it. The goal is to provide a clear fact base for discussion about complicated issues.

This Regional Dossier focuses on the Austrian federal province of Carinthia, where the vast majority of the Slovene-speaking minority in Austria lives. The Slovene language belongs to the South Slavic language group. It was the official language of the Socialist Republic of Slovenia in former Yugoslavia and has been the state language of independent Slovenia since 1991. Since Slovenia joined the European Union (EU) in 2004, Slovene has been one of the official languages of the EU. The aim of the Regional Dossier series is to provide concise descriptions of minority languages in education, mainly in Europe but also in other parts of the world. Aspects that are addressed include features of the education system, recent educational policies, main actors, legal arrangements, and support structures, as well as quantitative aspects such as the number of schools, teachers, and pupils, and financial investments. The dossiers serve several purposes and are relevant for policymakers, researchers, teachers, students, and journalists who wish to explore developments in minority language schooling in Europe. They can also serve as a first orientation towards further research, or function as a source of ideas for improving educational provisions. Every Regional Dossier begins with an introduction about the region in question, followed by six chapters that each deal with a specific level of the education system (e.g. primary education). Chapters 8 and 9 cover the main lines of research into education of the minority language under discussion, and the prospects for the minority language in general and in education in particular, respectively. Chapter 10 provides a summary of statistics. Lists of (legal) references and useful addresses regarding the minority language are given at the end of the dossier.

Shifts in the visibility and recognition of LGBTQ+ identity have been accompanied by an evolution in understanding how educational policies, curricula, and environments impact well-being, health, and academic success. Since 2015, landmark decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court recognizing same-sex marriage and expansively defining sex under employment law have been joined by a retrenchment in public opinion as well as federal and state policy. This paradox of both increasing LGBTQ+ visibility and resistance toward LGBTQ+ acceptance has centered LGBTQ+ youth in political debates, with a particular focus on issues related to transgender and nonbinary youth. Historically, the literature on LGBTQ+ students in schools has focused on discrimination and poor social relationships, such as bullying, harassment, and victimization. While situated in a deficit-based framing, students' reports of negative school environments and their connection to poor academic and health outcomes provide the motivation for policymakers, educators, parents, and other educational stakeholders to invest in structural and social reform efforts. The law has played a prominent role in both the expansion and retrenchment of students' civil rights in schools, and this has been true for LGBTQ+ students. LGBTQ+ students have experienced many favorable but fluctuating rulings in many courts, so school officials would be wise to keep apprised of the evolving decisions in their jurisdictions. Educational stakeholders should familiarize themselves with the legal landscape, advocate for inclusive and protective state and local policies, ensure that local district practices protect LGBTQ+ students from discrimination and harassment in schools, leverage LGBTQ+-inclusive community organizations and resources, participate in trainings to improve inclusive school practices, and build LGBTQ+-inclusive facilities, teaching practices, and social supports for youth. [This paper was published.]

This report catalogues the growth of the modern mixed-race population in the United States and highlights the many complications this population presents for the future of civil rights law and policy. What is most distinctive of today's mixed-race individuals is their assertion of a mixed-race identity which they claim embodies a different experience compared to those who report to be a single race such as "white" or "black." This emphasis on personal identity presents a new dimension that must be considered in the development of new civil rights policy. [For the full report, see ED630503.]

The last several years have been trying for students, communities, and schools. As states and local educational agencies work to meet the significant health and educational needs of students, and address the vast racial and socioeconomic inequities that have been heightened by the pandemic, the federal role in education is critical. Because the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) remains the government's most consequential mechanism to promote equity in public education, the upcoming reauthorization of the law's latest version, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), presents an opportunity to re-envision this federal role in promoting access to quality educational opportunities. In this brief, the authors describe an equitable, evidence-based, and ecological civil rights framework to guide the redesign of ESSA. It places students, staff, school systems, and cross-sector collaboration at the center of ESEA and considers the complexity of racial, socioeconomic, and other inequities along with the strengths nested within communities.

The Taliban's return to power in Afghanistan last year has produced a desperate humanitarian situation in the country. Nearly half of all households are experiencing acute food insecurity, maternal and infant mortality rates are rising quickly, and 97% of families are at risk of dropping below the poverty line. Most concerning is the intentional and vicious erasure of women and girls from public life by the Taliban, especially the ban on girls' access to secondary education and the rapid deterioration of education quality across the country. What is happening to the women and girls of Afghanistan creates not simply a moral imperative, but a growing threat to regional and even global peace, prosperity, and security. Dire as the situation may be, it is not hopeless. This report discusses steps the United States and allies can take, along with civil society and others, to mitigate the suffering of Afghan women and girls and provide opportunities in an otherwise bleak situation.

This literature review includes a broad review of LGBTQ+ civil rights law and evolving cases, population research and limitations of data collection, student survey findings on school climate and safety, education best practices at the classroom, district and state level, and student perspectives from youth across the country, including members of IDRA's 2022 Youth Advisory Board. This resource is for parents, students, administrators and staff, community members, researchers.

Data systems are becoming powerful tools to address students' diverse and changing needs, but without comprehensive data privacy policies, the risks of unintentional or malicious disclosures of students' private information is increasing. Given the mounting challenges to protect data privacy, Education Commission of the States assembled data privacy experts and practitioners to consider strategies for protecting students' privacy without compromising the power of education data. This Policy Guide highlights participants' suggestions and offers actional approaches to maximize the use of education data while minimizing risk to students' privacy, including state examples and key considerations for state leaders.

The "FY 2023 Annual Performance Plan" details the Department's planned strategies and activities to achieve the Strategic Goals and objectives in the "U.S. Department of Education Fiscal Years 2022-2026 Strategic Plan" (see ED625432) as well as the performance indicators that will be used to assess progress on the strategic objectives. The "FY 2021 Annual Performance Report" provides narrative and data on the Department's progress toward its Strategic Goals and objectives in the fiscal year (FY) 2018-FY 2022 Strategic Plan (see ED620770). The "Government Performance and Results Act Modernization Act of 2010" (GPRAMA) (Pub. L. No. 111-352) updated the "Government Performance and Results Act of 1993" (GPRA) (Pub. L. No. 103-62) and provides the legal basis for the Department's Strategic Plan, including its Strategic Goals and objectives. The FY 2022-FY 2026 Strategic Plan established five Strategic Goals, each with supporting strategic objectives that span across the Department and address Administration priorities, such as recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic; ensuring high-quality, equitable secondary and postsecondary education; and providing diverse learning environments for all students, especially those who have been underserved. Each supporting strategic objective has corresponding performance indicators to assess the Department's progress on achieving the Strategic Goals and objectives. The "FY 2021 Annual Performance Report" presented herein summarizes the fourth and final year of results of the Department executing the FY 2018-FY 2022 Strategic Plan. Accomplishing the goals of the FY 2018-FY 2022 Strategic Plan was about much more than meeting targets for performance indicators and encompassed a wide array of activities. This report discusses the accomplishments of the Department during FY 2021 as well as the challenges encountered. Also included is the Department's progress on implementing activities to support the priorities of the Biden-Harris Administration during the last eight months of FY 2021, such as returning to safe and in-person instruction in classrooms; promoting equity in education across the nation; and providing adequate resources for students, educators, and faculty as they return to in-person instruction. [For "U.S. Department of Education FY 2022 Annual Performance Plan," see ED613341. For "U.S. Department of Education FY 2020 Annual Performance Report," see ED613318.]

Many studies confirm that segregated schools for minoritized students produced worsened academic, economic, health, and criminal justice outcomes over the short and long term. By contrast, a substantial body of research establishes that students of all races benefit from attending diverse schools. Despite this evidence, the tools for achieving greater integration have been limited by courts and legislatures in the past few decades, and new approaches to achieve integration are needed. One tool that could be leveraged more fully to create high-quality, integrated educational environments is the use of magnet schools. Well-designed magnet schools can support desegregation and improve student learning, as they create innovative education models and accommodate geographically dispersed families to produce a racially and economically integrated student body. This report presents a policy proposal for a new, federally coordinated approach to magnet school development, conducted under the framework of the Fair Housing Act's mandate to affirmatively further fair housing. This proposal envisions an interagency effort conducted by both the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Department of Education, potentially incorporating programs managed by other federal agencies, such as the Internal Revenue Service's Low-Income Housing Tax Credit. Social science research has long established the link between housing and K-12 education, and magnet schools represent a natural subject in which to pioneer interagency coordination on these two policy spheres. But federal civil rights policy, especially in recent decades, has often addressed schools and housing in separate silos. This report offers an opportunity to improve and refine several legal and policy tools for desegregating schools and communities.

Young people increasingly need an education that prepares them for our rapidly changing world, enabling them to deeply understand academic content, think critically and solve complex problems, communicate effectively, work collaboratively, and learn how to learn continuously. This "deeper learning"--once offered to the small share of students presumed to be preparing for thinking work-- is now a requirement for all. Yet the journey to deeper learning is a challenging one in the inequitable school system we have inherited in the United States. Compounding the barriers are the many other sources of inequality in our society: dramatic income inequalities, high rates of childhood poverty, and unequal school funding and access to resources of all kinds. This brief describes the key civil rights foundations that have been--and continue to be--essential to paving a path toward possibilities for deeper learning for all: those that secure safe communities, adequate school resources, inclusive environments, well-prepared teachers, and access to quality curriculum. It identifies the evidence-based policies and practices that can ensure that every student has access to a high-quality education focused on meaningful learning. [The brief is written with Eliza Byard. The book on which this brief is based is "The Civil Rights Road to Deeper Learning: Five Essentials for Equity. Multicultural Education Series" (ED622607).]

In November 2022, Florida governor Ronald DeSantis, won reelection by a decisive margin and the Republican party gained supermajorities in both houses of the state legislature. During the governor's first term and after reelection, the Florida House and Senate passed legislation and the DeSantis administration took executive actions that further aimed to censor the teaching and learning of certain historical topics; potentially criminalize some discussions of race, gender, and sexuality; stigmatize, marginalize, and exclude transgender people. In the wake of these developments, it quickly became apparent that the governor's education program, which initially focused on K-12 schools, had ominous and direct consequences for public higher education as well. The threat to higher education and, more specifically, to foundational principles of shared governance and academic freedom, intensified in early January 2023 when the governor appointed six new trustees to the board of New College of Florida, an alternative liberal arts college within the Florida public higher education system. Responding to these developments, the AAUP in January 2023 announced the formation of the undersigned special committee to inquire into what the Association described as an "apparent pattern of politically, racially, and ideologically motivated attacks on public higher education" and to prepare a report of its findings and issued a preliminary report (see Related Records). Incorporating material from the preliminary report, this final report reaffirms those findings and expands upon them. It also considers more explicitly how AAUP-supported principles and standards are implicated. And it broadens the scope of inquiry not only to cover subsequent events but also to incorporate the perspectives of many additional interviewees.

This briefing is intended to support Universities UK (UUK) members ahead of the implementation of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act. The government introduced the Act with the intention of strengthening freedom of speech and academic freedom in higher education in England, and received Royal Assent in May 2023. The legislation will have a wide-ranging impact on universities in England, as well as the role and remit of the Office for Students (OfS), including: (1) a new strengthened duty to promote freedom of speech and academic freedom; (2) new OfS condition(s) of registration; (3) requirements for codes of practice; (4) regulation of students' unions on freedom of speech; (5) the introduction of a statutory tort; (6) establishment of a free speech complaints scheme; (7) creation of the role of the Director for Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom; (8) monitoring of overseas funding in relation to risks to academic freedom and freedom of speech; and (9) prohibition of non-disclosure agreements in complaints relating to harassment and sexual misconduct. This briefing sets out the legal landscape around freedom of speech and academic freedom, listing the other legal duties on universities that are relevant to freedom of speech and academic freedom. This includes the European Convention on Human Rights, the Human Rights Act 1998, the Prevent duty, the Equality Act 2010 and the public sector equality duty. It also covers what universities may wish to consider when updating existing codes of practice on freedom of speech and academic freedom and offers suggestions of other steps universities can take to prepare for their new duties, including reviewing other governing documents. [This briefing was developed with Shakespeare Martineau.]

June 23, 2022 marks the 50th anniversary of the passage of Title IX. This federal civil rights law has been credited with profoundly changing education in the United States by barring sex discrimination in the nation's schools. Title IX, along with other equity laws, helped to unlock access to educational and athletic opportunities, paving the way for inroads into historically male-dominated professions. The work of five decades of Title IX's impact is writ large in every sector of American society. This report is grounded in the rich history of Title IX and takes a multi-dimensional look at its impact. The report is based on a rigorous literature review and original research using publicly available data sets. The focus is primarily on the enforcement of Title IX in athletics and the three major areas that should be reviewed in ongoing and regular Title IX audits: athletic participation opportunities, allocation of athletic scholarship funding, and allocation of resources in operational areas. The report examines Title IX through the lens of intersectionality, explores emerging issues, and looks ahead to what is needed to accelerate the pace of change for the next 50 years.

This policy memo examines some fundamental shifts, along with their real-world implications, within the past 60 years of Supreme Court jurisprudence, up to and including the current "Carson v. Makin" case. The Supreme Court is just a few small steps away from transforming every charter school law in the U.S. into a private-school voucher policy. Further, the nation may be facing a future of religious organizations proselytizing through charter schools that have been freed from obeying anti-discrimination laws--with LGBTQ+ community members being the most likely victims.

In 2018, the Network for Public Education and the Schott Foundation issued a report entitled "Grading the States." That report examined America's commitment to democracy by grading each state and the District of Columbia on the number of publicly-funded but privately-governed educational "choice" programs it had and whether those programs had sufficient safeguards to protect students' well-being and civil rights. Since then, the march to privatize one of our country's most precious institutions--our public schools--has continued. Indeed, it has intensified. The first step in stopping the privatization movement is to understand it. This report takes up where the 2018 report left off. Not only does this report grade the states based on their willingness to commit exclusively or primarily to democratically governed public schools open to all, but their willingness to put sufficient guardrails and limits on publicly-funded alternatives to ensure that taxpayers, students, and families are protected from discrimination, corruption and fraud in the programs they have. [For "Grading the States: A Report Card on Our Nation's Commitment to Public Schools," see ED612891.]

This study explores the common barriers and shared visions for creating access to archival collections held by libraries at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). One of few reports that document the needs of HBCU libraries as they relate to archives and special collections. It is based on a series of online focus groups that author Sharon Ferguson Freeman facilitated with HBCU library directors and deans in 2021. The study provides insight into the significance of special and archival collections for HBCU librar­ies and their communities; the management and capacity of archives and special collections; and these libraries' values, priorities, needs, and aspirations. The findings also reveal information related to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on HBCUs and broader topics of significance that were not anticipated when the project began.