A left-wing political group has filed a legal action
against the Snyder administration claiming that the state violated the U.S.
Civil Rights Act by putting an emergency manager in charge of the Detroit
Public Schools and separating some Detroit schools into a state-created
district.

Go Left America, with the support of the Detroit school
board, filed the Title VI civil rights complaint with the U.S. Justice
Department on Wednesday in response to “education policies which have resulted
in school closings, substandard education, retaliation, discrimination and
other imbalances.” 

The group explained their rationale this way:

“The basis of this 450-page complaint is that Rick
Snyder’s education policies, and his installation of emergency managers who
have shut down schools in predominantly minority communities, has brought real
damage to the city and residents of Detroit, and is harming students in the
process,” Go Left America said in a statement.

The complaint focuses on the state takeover of the
Detroit schools and the subsequent series of four emergency managers over a
6-year period who operated with broad authority and without oversight from the
school board. The legal challenge also targets the reform plan known as the
Education Achievement Authority (EAA) which took control of Detroit’s 15
worst-performing schools in an attempt to establish reforms.

Formed three years ago, the EAA has exhibited little
progress and in the spring the agency underwent the beginnings of an overhaul,
including the replacement of many of the so-called “super principals” who were
given wide latitude at the 15 school buildings.

Go Left America, a Washington-based nonprofit group which
focuses on liberal causes at the state and local level, said it spent more than
2000 hours of research and spoke with more than 400 Detroit residents,
teachers, students and families in preparation for the legal action.

The complaint filed with the Justice Department goes so
far as to blame Snyder for gang violence and rapes aimed at students who were
reassigned to EAA schools that involve a long walking distance.

Formed in May 2013, Go Left America appears to take a
militantly partisan stance against conservative and Republican policies. The
organization has vowed to “take down the GOP in every state in the nation.”

In a blog post on
the Daily Kos website, a leader of the group, who blogs under the name mdmslle,
said this:

“It’s been a couple of decades of Republican f—ery in
Michigan education, and specifically in Detroit. Well, we got sick of it and
worked together with the Detroit School Board to file a Title VI complaint with
the Department of Justice. It’s GAME ON.”

 

 

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