Thread: New Labor Secretary Pick (La Raza, MALDEF) - R. Alexander Acosta

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE WEDNESDAY, MAY 19, 2004 WWW.USDOJ.GOV

CRT (202) 514-2008 TDD (202) 514-1888

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT REACHES SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT
WITH OKLAHOMA SCHOOL DISTRICT IN MUSLIM STUDENT
HEADSCARF CASE

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Department of Justice today announced the settlement of a lawsuit alleging that the Muskogee, Oklahoma Public School District had violated the constitutional rights of a sixth-grade Muslim girl when it barred her from wearing a Muslim headscarf, or hijab. Under the consent agreement signed by the parties, the school district will allow the girl to wear the headscarf and will revise its student dress code policy to accommodate exceptions for bona fide religious reasons.
“This settlement reaffirms the principle that public schools cannot require students to check their faith at the school house door,” said R. Alexander Acosta, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. “The Department of Justice will not tolerate discrimination against Muslims or any other religious group. As the President and the Attorney General have made clear repeatedly, such intolerance is un-American, and is morally despicable.”
The Justice Department intervened in this case in March 2004, after an investigation revealed that the school district prohibited the student, Nashala Hearn, from wearing her hijab at Benjamin Franklin Science Academy, a public middle school in Muskogee. The investigation further uncovered that while Hearn was prohibited from wearing her hijab, the school district allowed certain other students to wear head coverings for non-religious purposes. During the 2003-04 school year, the school district twice suspended Nashala Hearn for wearing the hijab. Later, she was permitted her to wear the hijab pending the outcome of the suit.
The parties today signed a proposed consent decree, filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma, resolving the lawsuit. Under the six-year agreement, which remains subject to court approval, the school district will amend its dress code to permit head coverings for bona fide religious reasons and will allow Hearn to wear her hijab while attending the Muskogee Public Schools. The district will also implement a training program for all teachers and administrators regarding the amended dress code, publicize the revised dress code policy to students and parents and certify its compliance with the terms of the order for a four-year period.
The Civil Rights Division is involved in a number of ongoing religious liberty cases in schools and many other contexts. More information about these cases may be found at www.usdoj.gov/crt/religdisc/religdisc.html.

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04-343

All the traitors in Congress will love him. McConnell's not right often but when he's right, he's really right and one of those times was when he said that Andrew Puzder would be the best Secretary of Labor in US history. It's a shame we were denied that by a handful of Republican senators.

A Tale of Two Nominees


Why do Estrada opponents adore Acosta?By Jim Boulet Jr. — July 8, 2003


Two Hispanic men of achievement have been suggested for high office by the Bush administration. You have undoubtedly heard of Miguel Estrada, a Bush judicial nominee who is the victim of a filibuster by Senate Democrats. You may soon hear of R. Alexander Acosta, whose prospective nomination as assistant attorney general for civil rights has provoked praise from the same foes of official English who oppose Estrada.


The National Council of La Raza (NCLR), while tepid regarding the Estrada nomination, is red hot in its support for Acosta because:

During his tenure at DOJ, Mr. Acosta played a pivotal role in the Limited-English-Proficient (LEP) Guidance enforcing Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which requires recipients of federal financial assistance to provide language assistance to LEP persons.

The Justice Department’s own press release on Acosta also refers to an award to Acosta from the “Mexican-American Legal Defense Fund.”


The group’s actual name, according to the Associated Press is the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF). MALDEF is strongly opposed to the Estrada nomination.


MALDEF gave Acosta its “Excellence in Government Service Award” this year “for his work on language minority issues, including initiatives on language access to government-funded services” (emphasis added).


The language “initiatives” commended by MALDEF are all tied to Clinton Executive Order 13166. E.O. 13166 requires all recipients of federal funds to function in Spanish, or any other language in the world, upon demand. So-called “Hispanic-rights groups” see nothing wrong with making Spanish coequal with English in the United States, even if the people those groups claim to represent are busy learning English.



Obviously, winning an endorsement from an anti-English group like the NCLR as well as an award from MALDEF does not constitute infallible proof that Acosta is himself anti-English.



Friends of mine assure me that Acosta was personally opposed to many of the anti-English policies he acted to strengthen. Or they say that Acosta was merely doing the bidding of his superiors. All of those things could well be true. And therein lies the problem.



As a rule, when a Democratic president makes a “historic first” nomination, his people ensure the nominee is firmly one of them ideologically. When Republican presidents pick people as the “first woman this” or “first Hispanic that,” the nominee’s ideology seems an afterthought at best. Accordingly, liberals get Janet Reno while conservatives get Sandra Day O’Connor. And the records of “stealth conservatives” like David Souter are not encouraging.



If MALDEF and NCLR are proven right about Acosta — and their track record says they will be — he is the wrong choice on both political and policy grounds.



To appoint a supporter of E.O. 13166 like Acosta as the chief law-enforcement officer for Clinton’s misguided language policy will ensure that all the expensive fallout from Clinton’s linguistic pandering lands at the doorstep of President George W. Bush. This is dreadful politics.



E.O. 13166 is also simply awful policy. It says to every immigrant: “don’t bother to learn English. We’ll tell you everything you need to know.” That is not the American way that, for over 200 years, turned millions of immigrants into proud, productive American citizens.



If the Bush administration is determined to name the first Hispanic to the post of assistant attorney general for civil rights, there are undoubtedly plenty of distinguished Hispanic lawyers who agree with Linda Chavez’s thinking about E.O. 13166. Such a nominee would ensure a sound language policy for the Bush administration.



As Morton Blackwell has taught generations of conservatives, “sound doctrine is sound politics.” He’s right.



— Jim Boulet Jr. is executive director of English First.



http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...-jim-boulet-jr

We need a Uniform Code in all Public Taxpayer Funded Schools of Khaki Pants, Tennis Shoes and a Polo Shirt, schools choice of color.

Get ALL religion out of our schools, this is out of control. Get back to the business at hand...education! Reading, writing, math, English, Science.

Leave your Mexican Flag, your Headscarf, your Trash Wear, your Religion at the doorstep.

Don't like it? Then go to a Religious School of your choice, or Private School of your choice...paid for OUT of your pockets.

Do not like the School Lunch Menu? Pack your own lunch and pay for your own lunch. This is ridiculous.

Stop all of this non-sense in it's tracks...all of it.

Do the Jewish children wear a Yamaka? How about ALL the student's show up in religious clothing of their faith?

Would the Muslim's like this little stunt?

GO FOR IT KIDS, DRESS UP LIKE JESUS AND MARY AND THE 3 WISE MEN. THIS I WOULD LOVE TO SEE...GET IT ON TWITTER!

La Raza Is "red hot" for Acosta from article above. Well, I am not.

Yeah, it won't be American Workers jobs he's saving or protecting. We'll have to do that another way through the other departments where the business people are. Shame. Labor could have played a huge role in expediting what Trump wants to achieve, but he doesn't want another battle right now.

I think we have gone from bad to worse. His connections and actions are not reflective of an "America First" agenda. He will cry for illegal aliens, make claims that businesses and industry need them, support Muslim accommodations, use La Raza and MALDEF talking points.

Where were Stephen Miller, Bannon, Kobach, Jeff Sessions?

Priebus, Paul Ryan, McConnell, McCain, establishment swamp dwellers will like this choice.

Originally Posted by Judy

All the traitors in Congress will love him. McConnell's not right often but when he's right, he's really right and one of those times was when he said that Andrew Puzder would be the best Secretary of Labor in US history. It's a shame we were denied that by a handful of Republican senators.

Time to get over Puzder. He was a horrible choice and pretty much everyone on ALIPAC, with the exception of you, could see that clearly. He was a staunch supporter of illegal immigrant amnesty and increases in foreign labor. it would also appear he was a wife abuser. He was not fit to serve in any position in Trump's cabinet. He basically stood for everything we at ALIPAC oppose.

I'm not happy with this new choice either, but unfortunately, like you said, he'll probably cruise to an uncontested appointment if for no other reason than being Hispanic and working for the civil rights division of the Department of Justice. I guess Trump's team is thinking they can't take another chance on someone the Democrats would rail against.

Puzder would have actually been a great Secretary of Labor for what we want to accomplish which is why the Senate rejected him. It's a shame that these Republicans wanted to talk to the press and pre-judge a nominee before he even had his hearing and that's all the proof one needs to know Puzder would have done a great job for what we want to accomplish.

President Trump is holding his news conference now. Very disappointed. He buckled.