The Department of Education Office of Civil Rights (OCR) released today information, including a webinar, on how institutions moving to on-line delivery as a result of Covid-19 can ensure that their students with disabilities can still be served.
The release from OCR is available here.
Various higher education associations addressed a letter, dated December 9th, 2019, to Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs Marie Royce expressing concerns about the future of OPT. UW is a member of the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities (APLU) and Association of American Universities (AAU), which both signed the letter circulated by the American Council on Education. The letter requests that the State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs meet with the Department of Homeland Security and relevant agencies to affirm the future of OPT and address long visa processing times.
President Trump has signed an executive order aimed at tackling antisemitism on college campuses. The order gives Jewish persons special protections under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which is enforced by the Department of Education. Under statute, Title VI only gives protection for race, color, or national origin. In a press statement at a White House Hanukkah event, President Trump said colleges would be ineligible for federal funds if they “traffic in anti-Semitic hate”.
The Senate confirmed yesterday Dan Brouillette as the new Energy Secretary. Brouillette takes over from Rick Perry, whose resignation became effective Sunday evening. Before being confirmed for his new role, he served under Perry as the Deputy Secretary of Energy.
On November 13th, UW signed onto a letter circulated by the Michael J Fox Foundation to the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. The letter opposes the Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science rule, which would require raw data to be made publicly available when it is used to formulate new regulations. UW is joined by over sixty other higher education institutions, associations, and research organizations in opposing these rule changes. There are many instances, especially in the health sciences, when making raw data publicly available would be infeasible or harm the confidentiality of research subjects. Therefore, this rule could limit the quality of data used in the regulatory process, as only data which could be made publicly available would be utilized.