The current presidential administration’s attempts to use civil rights law against protected groups present vulnerabilities for public school students, and school districts must be prepared to defend their students, said civil rights attorney and former U.S. Court of Appeals judge David Tatel. He spoke to urban school district officials during an interview by Council of the Great City Schools’ general counsel Mary Lawson at the Council’s March Legislative Conference.

Tatel, who was diagnosed with a rare eye disease at age 15 and lost his sight in his 30s, has dedicated his career to advancing civil rights. As the founding director of both the Chicago and National Lawyers' Committees for Civil Rights Under Law, he later directed the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Health, Education and Welfare before being appointed by President Clinton to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, where he served from 1994 to 2024.

Tatel noted the significant influence of his wife, Edie, who worked as a substitute teacher while he studied law at the University of Chicago. Her experience helped shape his early-career focus on urban education and school desegregation law, the latter of which Tatel championed through his work as an attorney in the U.S. Office for Civil Rights.

When asked if school desegregation ultimately worked, Tatel described how all three branches of government initially worked together to desegregate schools, resulting in "extraordinary amounts of desegregation in the South." However, beginning in the late 1970s, those same institutions "switched sides and began to work against desegregation," with even the Obama administration largely abandoning the effort.

"The history is both dramatic and shameful," Tatel remarked.

Turning his attention toward current public education events, Tatel expressed concern about the Trump administration's approach to the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act, which prohibits discrimination based on disability in federally funded programs, including public schools. 

"The big question is, what's the Trump administration going to do with these laws? We'll just have to see whether enforcing these disabilities laws is a priority," he said.

When asked what advice he would give educators if civil rights enforcement is deemphasized, Tatel was forthright: "They have a real challenge ahead of them." He predicted that although the Office for Civil Rights might continue to exist, its mission would "change dramatically," focusing instead on gender issues, transgender participation in sports, and eliminating D.E.I. programs.

In the absence of a federal Department of Education, Tatel noted that school districts will shoulder all responsibility for protecting vulnerable children, along with state governments “in the blue states."

Tatel urged school districts to question whether current federal demands by the new president are legally justified and advised them to consider how to resist illegal directives. 

"Are they asking me to do something they have the legal authority to do and, if not, how do I resist that?" 

"We're headed toward a period of enormous uncertainty," Tatel concluded, "nothing like I've ever faced."