raymond_rose@notes.concord.org wrote:
>
> I hate to try and defend OCR -- it is your government at work. The Office
> for Civil Rights has had a checkered history. They have done some good
> work, and some not so good. There are regional offices and each one has
> it's own personality as Peggy said earlier, so its hard to paint the
> organization with a single brush (and folks on this list don't generally
> subscribe to that type of behavior anyway) (:
>
> OCR is political -- they get funded (or not) by Congress and that funding
> often contains direction as to what they should concentrate on. They have
> been the defendant in court action for failure to conduct investigations in
> a timely manner. They were under consent decree for years on that and I
> suspect that some of the complaints about lack of investigation accuracy
> follow behavior changes from that. Not an excuse -- just an explanation.
>
> I've seen some of the OCR investigations (I use to work with a State
> Education Department and then a DAC) and some were real good. OCR often
> has a very little stick to use -- if push comes to shove -- so they often
> really hedge on their findings hoping to use the PR of a report to cause
> some action.
>
> Then there's the other side of OCR - beauracrats who have been too long in
> the system and are jaded. Who want to get out, who feel other issues are
> more important, or who are in for political reasons and have intent to slow
> down the progress many of us would like to see move forward.
>
> The problem is knowing which OCR you're dealing with. Is the case strong?
> Is it part of the focus for that particular OCR office? What's the
> backlog? Who's the investigator? What's the national political climate
> (for OCR) now and what's it going to be at the time the report is to be
> released?
>
> State Education Agencies are similar. There's effective and less. Folks
> on this list have background on both -- but don't expect to see that info
> posted to the list (who's on this list?)
>
> Fighting the discrimination on your own is how much of the case law was
> established -- that means finding a good lawyer (not all are effective --
> like OCR) but then you're in charge of your own fate. But that costs money
> -- you already paid for OCR and the SEA with your taxes. (hey Linda, can we
> sue the Feds (or State) for a rebate on taxes for the failure of a state or
> federal agency to enforce civil rights laws?)
>
> Hmmm...
>
> ray
>
> raymond_rose@notes.concord.org