California Attorney General Rob Bonta today, along with Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, led a multistate coalition in opposing proposed changes to the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights’ (OCR) biennial Civil Rights Data Collections. The proposed changes would halt data collection on nonbinary students, remove “gender identity” and “sex characteristics” from the OCR’s definitions of harassment and bullying on the basis of sex, and cease collection of data on harassment and bullying on the basis of gender identity. OCR’s Civil Rights Data Collection is the largest and, in some instances, the only source of nationwide publicly available civil rights education data, making it critical to analysis on student equity and opportunity in education.
“Students deserve an educational environment that acknowledges and respects their gender identity. To do that, educators need to understand how students experience bullying and harassment due to that identity,” said Attorney General Bonta. “The Civil Rights Data Collection is a critical component of identifying and protecting vulnerable students from harm. My fellow attorneys general and I strongly oppose the Department of Education’s attempt to erase these students’ existence and experiences from the record.”