Trump Admin Reportedly Proposes Staggering Rollback Of Civil Rights Protections

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The Justice Department wants to change how it enforces civil rights law to remove protection for disadvantaged groups, the New York Times reported, and continues the Trump administration’s longstanding quest to weaken civil rights law.

Photo taken on October 20, 2020 shows the U.S. Department of Justice building in Washington DC … [+] United States. The US Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit on Tuesday indicting Google for “illegally maintaining monopolies” in the search and search advertising markets, the department said in a statement.

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Key factors

The proposed change would restrict the definition of discrimination under Title IV of the Civil Rights Act and only take into account cases of demonstrable willful discrimination.

The rule would no longer include cases of “disparate effects” or practices that are neutral in their face but disproportionately affect women, racial minorities, people with disabilities or LGBTQ people.

Literacy tests from Jim Crow’s time are often cited as an example of differential impact because they did not explicitly target voters by race, but policies disproportionately affected black people who were systematically excluded from educational opportunities.

The proposed settlement was presented on December 21st and has yet to be approved by the White House. However, it has not been made available for public comment, as the department argued that it falls under an exception regarding agency loans, grants and contracts, according to the New York Times.

Neither the Justice Department nor the White House immediately responded to a request for comment from Forbes.

Key background

The Trump administration has tried to undo protection for disadvantaged groups during the president’s first term. The Justice Department argued in an amicus letter that the Civil Rights Act does not cover sexual orientation or gender identity. The Department of Education lifted the Obama-era policy of positive action. The Department of Housing and Urban Development proposed a rule that same-sex homeless shelters would refuse to serve transgender people. And most recently, Trump stopped diversity training at federal agencies. In these cases, the Trump administration has argued that this protection is beyond the scope of the law.

What to look for

Civil rights groups are likely to challenge the revisions and spark a potential battle in the Supreme Court.