Because it may have an “unjustified effect of discriminating against individuals on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, religion and disability,” the federal Department of Education is telling American universities to cease inquiring about potential students’ criminal history.
As The College Fix noted last week, it’s even devised a new term for students who happen to have gotten in trouble with the law: “justice-involved individuals.”
The feds also are asking colleges to “offer those with criminal records special support services such as counseling, mentoring and legal aid” once they’re matriculated.
Instructions are outlined in a cumbersome document (Beyond the Box) issued by the U.S Department of Education (ED) this month. It says that “data show plainly that people of color are more likely to come in contact with the justice system due, in part, to punitive school disciplinary policies that disproportionately impact certain student groups and racial profiling.” Because education can be a powerful pathway to transition out of prison and into the workforce, it’s critical to ensure that admissions practices don’t disproportionately disadvantage justice involved individuals, the directive states. Colleges and universities should also refrain from inquiring about a student’s school disciplinary history—including past academic dishonesty—because that too discriminates against minorities. Civil rights data compiled by ED show “black students are suspended and expelled at a rate three times greater than white students and often for the same types of infractions.”
RELATED: Obama administration tells universities: Call criminals ‘justice-involved individuals’
Therefore colleges and universities should consider designing admissions policies that don’t include disciplinary history so they don’t have the “unjustified effect of discriminating against individuals on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, religion and disability,” the new ED guidelines state. Three out of four colleges and universities collect high school disciplinary information and 89% of those institutions use the information to make admissions decisions, according to the order. That needs to change, according to the administration. A few years ago it warned public elementary and high schools to administer student discipline without discriminating on the bases of race, color or national origin because too many minority students—especially blacks—were getting suspended. The feds assert they issued the directive after reports of “racial disparities” in “exclusionary discipline policies” that created a “school to prison pipeline.”
This effort follows the Obama administration’s ban on federal agencies asking about potential employee criminal history.
Before that, the feds attempted to thwart private employers from making such inquiries claiming they “discriminate against all minority candidates, not just ex-cons.” However, a federal judge shot down that effort.
RELATED: Prof: U.S. Criminal Justice System Racist, Akin to Modern-Day Slavery
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