One person filed thousands of civil rights complaints to the Biden administration regarding alleged discrimination in the nation’s schools, contributing to a record total in 2022, according to The 74, an education-focused outlet.
One individual, whose identity the Department of Education (ED) withheld for privacy reasons, filed 7,339 Title IX complaints, averaging 20 per day, to the ED Office of Civil Rights (OCR) in 2022, according to The 74. Those complaints helped fuel a record number filed to the OCR in 2022 over race, sex and disabilities, totaling 18,804. (RELATED: EXCLUSIVE: School District Changes Tune On Race-Based Student Group Amid Federal Civil Rights Probe)
“This individual has been filing complaints for a very long time with OCR and they are sometimes founded,” Catherine Lhamon, the department’s assistant secretary for civil rights, told the outlet. “There’s not a lot I can tell you about the person.”
The amount of complaints filed to the OCR in 2022 increased from the previous year by 12%, The 74 reported. In 2016, the same individual filed more than 6,000 complaints to the OCR in 2016 for alleged sex discrimination in school athletic programs.
Title IX complaints can allege several different types of violations such as athletics and gender harassment, the outlet reported.
“We investigate every complaint over which we have jurisdiction,” Lhamon told The 74. “So the 7,339 complaints from that single individual last year took a very substantial amount of time for my staff.”
Of complaints filed to the OCR in 2022, 9,498, or 48% were sex-related complaints, 32% were disability-related complaints and 17% related to race or national origin discrimination complaints, The 74 reported.
“It could be that students are not allowed to use the bathroom consistent with their gender identity or are not allowed to play on a particular sports team,” Lhamon said regarding the sex-related complaints filed to the OCR.
Teacher Alexxa Martinez works in her classroom in Nevitt Elementary School, in Phoenix, Arizona, on October 26, 2022. (Photo by OLIVIER TOURON/AFP via Getty Images)
Throughout the country, conservative education groups and advocates are filing complaints to the OCR over alleged sex and race discrimination in nation’s schools; Mark Perry, a senior fellow at medical watchdog group Do No Harm, has filed 801 civil rights complaints against higher education institutions who allegedly weigh race or gender as a factor in any of their programs or scholarships. Parents Defending Education, a parental rights group, has filed several complaints to the OCR regarding K-12 school districts that allegedly offer exclusive race-based student groups.
The OCR did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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