The Senate confirmed Kimberly Richey as the subsequent assistant secretary for civil rights on the U.S. Division of Training in a 51-47 vote alongside get together traces late Tuesday afternoon. The approval got here as a part of a decision permitting senators to contemplate for affirmation Richey and over 100 different federal nominees without delay.
Richey served as appearing assistant secretary on the Training Division below the primary Trump administration — first for the Workplace of Particular Training and Rehabilitative Companies after which for the Workplace for Civil Rights — and in addition labored at OCR below the George W. Bush administration.
Her approval had been nothing wanting anticipated, contemplating the slight Republican majority within the Senate and President Donald Trump’s nomination in February to go the Training Division’s civil rights arm.
As assistant secretary of OCR, Richey might be answerable for overseeing investigations into alleged civil rights complaints, defending all college students’ civil rights, and drafting and implementing civil rights rules, together with however not restricted to Title IX, Title VI and Part 504.
She was confirmed to steer a ship that’s performing at half of its earlier capability, with OCR all the way down to 5 out of 12 of its places of work. She faces a backlog of over 12,000 open investigations and greater than 25,000 complaints, and a pared down workers on account of Trump and U.S. Training Secretary Linda McMahon’s efforts to wind down the division.
She’s additionally coming into the workplace because the Training Division is embroiled in a lawsuit that, till just lately, required OCR be restored to its earlier capability by returning laid off staff to their jobs. Simply because the Training Division started returning OCR staffers again to the job in waves, the federal district court docket order requiring its restoration was overturned in September by the 1st U.S. Circuit Court docket of Appeals.
The Training Division, most of whose workers is furloughed as a part of the federal government shutdown, has not responded to Okay-12 Dive’s requests about what meaning for the over 80 staffers who had already returned to their outdated posts.
Earlier than the Senate’s Well being, Training Labor and Pensions Committee confirmed Richey’s nomination in June, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., shared that attorneys at OCR are juggling on common 115 circumstances, greater than double the beforehand reported caseload of 42 circumstances per particular person.
Richey mentioned she would “at all times advocate for OCR to have the assets to do its job.” Nonetheless, she dodged questions on whether or not OCR, below Trump’s first administration, had sufficient assets to do its job.
“I’m going to should be actually strategic if I’m confirmed, entering into this position, serving to give you a plan the place we are able to handle these challenges,” she mentioned about OCR’s decreased assets below the present administration.
Amongst her first steps, Richey mentioned, could be to guage the present caseload and decide the place complaints stand of their investigative timelines. She would additionally study the workers distribution and organizational construction of OCR, she mentioned.
Richey mentioned that relatively than put sure investigations on pause, as has been the case below the second Trump administration, she would prioritize all complaints that fall at OCR’s footsteps.
After the mass layoffs on the company that left OCR gutted together with different division places of work, the Training Division advised Okay-12 Dive in March that OCR was present process organizational modifications and mentioned it could ship on its statutory duties.