OCR Publishes Searchable Directory of Schools With Pending Complaints #discrimination

The Office For Civil Rights of the federal Department of education has published a searchable database of schools that have had a complaint pending against them under §504, one of the federal anti-discrimination laws. The directory lists claims based upon disability discrimination and based upon all other unlawful types of discrimination. It should be emphasized that the listed items involve complaints filed and not findings of discrimination. Nonetheless, it is a valuable resource. Here is an article about the directory in Disability Scoop. 

OCR issued the following "disclaimer" in its press release:

OCR publishes as a public service, this list of elementary-secondary and post-secondary institutions under investigation. The list is a snapshot of data on aspects of law that OCR enforces as it existed at a particular point in time (i.e., the last Friday of each month). It is not real-time data. OCR will replace the list with a new data snapshot on the first Wednesday of each month.

The inclusion of an institution on this list does not mean that the institution violated a federal anti-discrimination statute; rather, it means that a complaint was filed with OCR and the agency determined the complaint should be opened for investigation, or the agency has opened a compliance review. OCR is still investigating the cases included on this list, or is otherwise working to resolve the cases (e.g., OCR may be in the process of negotiating a resolution agreement). Some cases are resolved with a finding that there is insufficient evidence an institution violated a statute enforced by OCR.

The search results are organized by the types of discrimination issues under investigation and not the number of open investigations at an institution. For example, an institution may appear in the search results multiple times if OCR is investigating the institution for more than one type of alleged discrimination, even if the allegations stem from a single case. Similarly, an institution may appear only once in the search results if OCR is investigating it for only one type of alleged discrimination, even if there are multiple open cases.

You can look up any school with a pending complaint in the database here. Disability discrimination complaints based upon alleged denial of FAPE are searchable here.