Where Was Office for Civil Rights? Virginia’s Civil Rights Monitoring Problem Spanning a Decade

Across six related matters, OCR moved so slowly that parents, teachers, students and advocates had to file new complaints or lawsuits to force action.

Monitoring is supposed to make sure a signed federal agreement protects students. In Virginia, U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) took so long that others had to file new cases while earlier ones were still under review or being monitored.

The pattern appears across the following six cases:

• OCR’s 2017 review of restraint and secl…