United States Department of Education opens disability discrimination investigation into Green Bay Area Public School District
(WFRV) – The United States Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) announced on Wednesday that it is opening a Title VI and disability-discrimination investigation into the Green Bay Area Public School District.
A release from the Department of Education's OCR said the investigation is based on a complaint from the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty. The complaint alleges that the Green Bay Area Public School District discriminated against a student with dyslexia based on their race.
Groups gather outside Senator Ron Johnson's Oshkosh office to voice concerns over possible Medicaid & Medicare cutsA
According to the release, the complaint specifically alleged that the District prioritizes its special education services to students based on racial priority groups. The complaint also said that the student in question did not fall into the group because he is white, the OCR release said.
The complaint continues, alleging that the District 'discriminated against the student based on disability and failed to provide timely and adequate special education services.'
The statement below is from the Department of Education's press release:
'In America, we do not 'prioritize' students for educational access, nor do we judge their worth, on the basis of skin color. Schools must provide special needs students access to supportive educational resources on an equal footing and on the basis of need, not on the basis of race. The Trump-McMahon Education Department rejects the false and patronizing idea that certain forms of discrimination are 'benign.' We will vigorously investigate this matter to ensure that the Green Bay Area Public School District is not discriminating against its students on the basis of race and disability.'
Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor
The statement below is from the press release, referring to the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty:
'We are grateful to Secretary McMahon and the Office for Civil Rights for opening this investigation into Green Bay Area Public School District. It is heartbreaking to think that, in America, a school would consider whether or not to provide services to a disabled student based not on that student's need, but on the color his skin. This is not only unlawful – it is an affront to the character of the American people. We are proud to work alongside the Department of Education to hold schools accountable for their antidiscrimination obligations and to ensure that no student is denied their equal opportunity protections under the law.'
Cory Brewer, Education Counsel at Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty
Menasha school district negotiating to take over Fox Cities childcare center
The full release can be viewed here. The official complaint is available here.
Local 5 will provide updates on this situation as needed.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Fox News
9 minutes ago
- Fox News
I'm a physician and I'm worried that our health agencies are facing increasing chaos
The American health system is bleeding out, and it desperately needs a real doctor. Leading Health and Human Services (HHS) today is like navigating a chaotic hospital — patients in every hallway, monitors screaming, seconds ticking away. Yet, instead of a seasoned physician who triages and trusts proven protocols, that hospital is overseen by an activist named Robert F. Kennedy Jr. A patient's oxygen level plummets; nurses turn to HHS Secretary Kennedy. Instead of orders, they get a lecture on conspiracies. Chaos follows. That chaos is now national. Our health agencies are trying to perform open-heart surgery while debating the effectiveness of a scalpel. Scientists who should be developing next-generation cancer vaccines are, instead, defending 60-year-old elementary science. Conspiracy ideology is beginning to take over, and we're all going to pay the price. I'm a board-certified physician and one of the most-followed online, and since Kennedy took office, I've been forced to swap from fact-checking Instagram influencers to fact-checking the nation's top public-health official. Our nation's health system is in shambles, and the leadership of HHS plays a pivotal role in fixing this disaster. That's why it's deeply alarming that Kennedy, who continues to spread misinformation and denies the fundamentals of medicine, remains at the helm of the agency. Although he claims he's "not anti-vaccine," his words and actions tell a different story. He recklessly attacks vaccine efficacy, spreads disproven theories linking vaccines to autism, and denies fundamental virology — from diseases like HIV, measles, and more. I'm all for healthy skepticism, but scientific skepticism means investigating data, not cherry-picking it … or making it up. These aren't privately held beliefs either — a post on his active X account states that the HPV vaccine "increases cervical-cancer risk" all despite mountains of real-world data showing up to 88% drops in cancer among vaccinated teens. Sweden, England, and even the CDC surveillance report plunging pre-cancer rates. Recently, he claimed, "50% of the population is diabetic" and that "one out of every three kids" already has the disease. In reality, true estimates put China's diabetes prevalence around 12%, and the U.S. pediatric figure closer to one in 300. If one of my interns inflated numbers by a factor of 10, they'd be sent back to remedial math. Kennedy does it regularly on primetime television. Worse, he's now canceled $12 billion in disease outbreak prevention programs, proposed a 26% cut to the NIH budget, and pink-slipped roughly 20,000 public-health scientists and staff. Those decisions have consequences: dozens of federally funded vaccine clinics in Arizona, Minnesota, Nevada, Texas and Washington were canceled just as measles cases blew past 1,000 — the worst surge in a generation. He's dismantling the firehouse while buildings are burning. Public health cannot survive an HHS head who guts the programs that keep us safe and then fans the very myths that make outbreaks explode. Kennedy's long record of undermining proven public health measures and spreading scientific falsehoods makes him a threat to millions of Americans. Certainly, he should never have been confirmed to lead the office in the first place, but choosing to leave him in charge is like handing the keys to a driver who continues to insist that stop signs and red lights are optional. Today, I say that Kennedy is the wrong person to lead HHS. The integrity of our nation's health agencies demands leadership grounded in facts, research, and transparency — not misinformation. Doctors like me take an oath to 'do no harm.' We must call out leaders like Secretary Kennedy when they cause great harm to public health. We must stop the bleeding.
E&E News
12 minutes ago
- E&E News
US Steel-Nippon deal raises emissions concerns
An emerging White House-backed deal to allow a Japanese firm to purchase U.S. Steel could have implications for the industry's greenhouse gas emissions. President Donald Trump plans to hold a rally Friday in Pittsburgh to celebrate the deal, which he has described as a 'planned partnership' with Nippon Steel that will be 'controlled by the United States.' But clean energy advocates are concerned that Nippon's acquisition of Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel, one of the biggest American steel producers, could delay the industry's transition away from coal-based blast furnaces. Advertisement 'This deal poses real threats to steel decarbonization in the U.S.,' Astrid Grigsby-Schulte, project manager of the Global Iron and Steel Tracker at the firm Global Energy Monitor, said in an email. 'On a global scale, Nippon has a lot of work to do to align with net zero goals and this extends to their acquisition of U.S. steel.'
E&E News
12 minutes ago
- E&E News
Interior moves closer to allowing drilling in Alaskan reserve
The Trump administration took steps this week toward reopening the country's largest tract of largely undisturbed public land to oil and gas drilling. The White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs completed its review on Wednesday of a draft rule to rescind a Biden-era regulation that banned drilling on nearly half of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska (NPR-A). The draft rule now returns to the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management, which would need to publish the proposal in the Federal Register and take public comment before finalizing. BLM said in a statement to POLITICO's E&E News that it plans to pursue removal of the Biden-era rule, but it did not provide a timeline. The Office of Management and Budget, which houses OIRA, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Advertisement The move comes amid the Trump administration's aggressive push to increase oil and gas activity on U.S. lands. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum ordered agencies to encourage fossil fuel production to 'unleash' American energy, and the administration has also drastically cut environmental review timelines for energy projects.
