Lateefah Simon: “I would like to remind us what this Nation used to do to its children. Before 1975, this country locked up 200,000…”

“I would like to remind us what this Nation used to do to its children. Before 1975, this country locked up 200,000 disabled children in institutions. We shut the schoolhouse door on children who were deaf, blind, or different in any way that we deemed inconvenient. Then, parents, advocates, and attorneys fought, and they won. We passed laws on this floor that said every child in this Nation belongs, and we created the Office of Civil Rights in the Department of Education to enforce those promises in real time and to investigate complaints. Earlier this year, employees in this office were fired. They were dismissed. Now, over 25,000 families are waiting for justice on their complaints. The Trump administration just requested that some of these attorneys temporarily come back to work this week to clean up the mess that the administration caused, but students and their families have already paid the price. The dismantling of the Department of Education is not reform. This is the resurrection of abandonment. Children deserve protection, not pathology.”