launched<\/a> an investigation into UC Berkeley and several other California universities for alleged antisemitism. UC Berkeley turned over the personal information of roughly 160 students and faculty as part of the investigation. Hinojosa said he doesn\u2019t expect these investigations to change under the new restructuring.<\/p>\n\u201cThe Office of Civil Rights and the Department of Education and the Department of Justice have been infiltrated and politicized,\u201d Hinojosa said. \u201cFor many of the universities that are experiencing these one-sided investigations, we don\u2019t expect much difference coming from the Department of Justice.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jada Yang, co-chair of the ASUC Disabled Students Commission, said moving disability programs from an education space to the HHS is \u201cnerve-wracking\u201d because it could change disability from an identity to something that needs to be fixed.<\/p>\n
While Yang is concerned about the shift and its potential to slow down discrimination cases or services for students, she said she\u2019s seen the UC Berkeley administration committed to serving disabled students.<\/p>\n
\u201cUC Berkeley has been really good, especially with this past year \u2026 to really assure disabled students and allies that we are one of their priorities in the budget and supporting our services and programs is at their forefront,\u201d Yang said. \u201c(But) the nature of what\u2019s going on \u2014 it just shows to me that disabled students can be seen as separate from the rest of the education system.\u201d<\/p>\n
These shifts further shrink the Department of Education, which President Donald Trump has committed to close. Last year, McMahon began transferring the department\u2019s responsibilities and funds to other federal agencies through interagency agreements, including most Title I funding, the Fulbright-Hays Program and now special education and civil rights.<\/p>\n
Fully dissolving the Department of Education requires an act of Congress, but through interagency agreements and mass layoffs, McMahon has initiated a reduction in force, impacting nearly 50% of the department workforce.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the Trump administration wants parents and families to have to fend for themselves and not be able to rely on the federal government to intervene with the appropriate support,\u201d Hinojosa said. \u201cThey\u2019re abandoning those responsibilities.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The U.S. Department of Education will be offloading responsibility for student civil rights enforcement and disability programs to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":371478,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[150540,75198,19442,38116,7045,536,75197,150539,150538,40189,41245,143,145,144,3632,150537,101,108027],"class_list":["post-371477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-asuc-disabled-students-commission","tag-catherine-e-lhamon","tag-department-of-education","tag-department-of-health-and-human-services","tag-department-of-justice","tag-donald-trump","tag-edley-center-on-law-democracy","tag-fulbright-hays","tag-individuals-with-disabilities-act","tag-jada-yang","tag-linda-mcmahon","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-office-of-civil-rights","tag-office-of-special-education-and-rehabilitative-services","tag-san-francisco","tag-title-i"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/371478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}