By: Benjamin Wermund
NEW POTENTIAL DEVOS CONFLICT ON CIVIL RIGHTS: If Betsy DeVos is confirmed to lead the Education Department, she may have to recuse herself from a civil rights complaint against West Michigan Aviation Academy, the charter school she and her husband founded. The charter, located in Grand Rapids, Mich., is one of hundreds of schools facing federal civil rights complaints charging that school websites are not accessible to people who are visually impaired or have hearing loss. If confirmed, DeVos, whose husband is a member of the charter’s board, would be the ultimate authority over how the complaint is resolved.
— The complaint is one of more than 890 that Marcie Lipsitt, a Michigan-based special education advocate, says she has filed against schools, districts, libraries, universities and other public organizations whose websites she feels are not accessible to people who have impaired vision or hearing or other forms of disability. This often means the websites can be accessed only by people who are able to use a computer mouse — meaning content on such sites is inaccessible to those who are blind — or that the sites display video content that isn’t properly captioned to accommodate those who have trouble hearing. Color combinations on websites can also make it difficult for people who are visually impaired to read online content.
— The Office for Civil Rights has sided with Lipsitt often in past complaints. The office is charged with handling complaints like the one she filed against DeVos’ charter school. It has opened hundreds of investigations based on her complaints and settled many of them, including against education departments in Michigan, Oregon, Nevada and other states. The settlements typically end with the school, district or state education department agreeing to update their websites. “America is inaccessible to people who are blind, deaf, have dyslexia,” Lipsitt told Morning Education, explaining the reason behind her aggressive advocacy. “… I will have left something that matters when I am dead and gone.”
— “As schools, school districts, states, and territories turn to the internet as a way to provide relevant and up-to-date information to their audiences in a cost-effective manner, they must make sure they are not inadvertently excluding people with disabilities from their online programs, services and activities,” Catherine Lhamon, who led the Office for Civil Rights under the Obama administration, said in a June statement announcing resolution agreements that required 11 districts and state departments of education to update their online portals. Those cases were spurred by complaints Lipsitt brought.
— Multiple ethics experts said the complaint against DeVos’ charter could pose a conflict and that DeVos would likely be forced to recuse herself from any decisions related to it, if the Senate approves her nomination. “She’s definitely going to have to stay out of it,” said Richard Painter, former ethics counsel under George W. Bush. “If her husband’s on the board, I think under the impartiality rule, she needs to recuse and have nothing to do with that investigation.”
— Lipsitt said DeVos as secretary could take an alternative approach. “She could shelve it,” Lipsitt said of the complaint. “I will be watching that.”
— “Betsy DeVos supports the civil rights of all students and the role of the Office for Civil Rights within the Education Department to handle these matters,” a Trump transition spokeswoman said. “As she has stated previously, if confirmed, she will work with the department’s counsel to ensure that any issues that come to her attention do not pose a conflict of interest.” The spokeswoman said West Michigan Aviation Academy was not previously aware of the complaint.
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NEW THIS MORING: DeVos’ massive financial disclosure statement and ethics agreement are online now. The Office of Government Ethics posted the documents this morning. Their release meets a deadline set by Sen. Lamar Alexander earlier this week. Alexander said he would hold a committee vote on DeVos’ nomination on Tuesday as long as her ethics paperwork was completed by today. Democrats had cried foul that Alexander held DeVos’ confirmation hearing before the ethics review was complete. DeVos reached an agreement with government ethics officials to divest her interest in 102 assets in order to avoid potential conflicts of interest as education secretary. Read her full ethics agreement here. Read DeVos’ 108-page public financial disclosure here.
— More heat over those big-ticket donations: The political action committee End Citizens United, which seeks reform of the campaign finance system, has posted an online ad critical of DeVos that draws attention to donations she’s made to senators now considering her confirmation.