Bullying, Career Colleges, and the CEI Podcast

Bullying

In a recent letter to school officials, Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Russlynn Ali warned about the detrimental effects of bullying—specifically, bullying that takes place outside of school.

Senior Counsel Hans Bader notes that efforts like Ali’s might be broadening the scope of education officials’ power.

“This meddling beyond school boundaries raises serious questions of administrative overreaching and invasion of students’ personal lives. The Education Department has little statutory basis for this meddling, since court rulings like Lam v. University of Missouri (1997) have typically rejected harassment claims against schools based on individuals’ conduct – even serious misconduct like ‘off-campus assaults’ – outside of school.”

Career Colleges

The Department of Education has proposed new rules that would deny students federal loans to attend certain for-profit career colleges.

CEI released a new study by Kara Cheseby that explains why the rule change would be a mistake.

“The Department justifies its proposal on the grounds that, while career colleges now account for 10 percent of the nation’s post-secondary enrollment, they account for a disproportionate 23 percent of federal loan dollars and 44 percent of federal student loan defaults. However, as this paper makes clear, the Department’s case for the rule is fundamentally flawed. Commonly drawn comparisons between career colleges and traditional schools are less meaningful than many suggest, because of the significant demographic differences in the student populations, programmatic variances, and major disparities in taxpayer subsidies between the distinct institutional sectors.”

CEI Podcast

In the new CEI Podcast, CEI General Counsel Sam Kazman talks about energy efficiency standards and his recent Wall Street Journal op-ed about washing machines. Listen to the podcast here.