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A young boy’s quick thinking helped save his entire family from a devastating house fire in University City last Thursday. The family lost nearly everything inside.

by Jennifer Smith Richards and Jodi S. Cohen

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The U.S. Department of Education on Thursday told employees that it would lift its monthlong freeze on investigating discrimination complaints at schools and colleges across the country — but only to allow disability investigations to proceed.

That means that thousands of outstanding complaints filed with the department’s Office for Civil Rights related to race and gender discrimination — most of which are submitted by students and families — will continue to sit idle. That includes cases alleging unfair discipline or race-based harassment, for example.

“I am lifting the pause on the processing of complaints alleging discrimination on the basis of disability. Effective immediately, please process complaints that allege only disability-based discrimination,” Craig Trainor, the office’s acting director, wrote in an internal memo obtained by ProPublica. It was sent to employees in the enforcement arm of the office, most of whom are attorneys.

A spokesperson for the department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

ProPublica reported last week that the Department of Education had halted ongoing civil rights investigations, an unusual move even during a presidential transition. Department employees said they had been told not to communicate with students, families and schools involved in cases that were launched in previous administrations, describing the edict as a “gag order” and saying they had “been essentially muzzled.”

The office has opened only a handful of new cases since the inauguration of President Donald Trump, and nearly all of them reflect his priorities. The investigations target a school district’s gender-neutral bathroom and institutions that have allowed transgender athletes to participate in women’s sports. Other prioritized investigations involve allegations of discrimination against white students or of anti-semitism.

As of last week, the OCR had opened about 20 new investigations in all, a low number compared with similar periods in prior years. More than 250 new cases were opened in the same time period last year, for example.

The OCR has had a backlog of cases for years — there were about 12,000 pending investigations when Trump took office. Some had been open for more than a decade, which civil rights advocates said failed to bring relief to students when they needed it.

About half of the pending investigations are related to students with disabilities who feel they’ve been mistreated or unfairly denied help at school, according to a ProPublica analysis of department data.

Investigators were pursuing about 3,200 active complaints of racial discrimination, including unfair discipline and racial harassment. An additional roughly 1,000 complaints were specific to sexual harassment or sexual violence, the analysis found. The remainder concern a range of discrimination claims.

Ignoring or attacking disability rights “would be politically unpopular,” said Harold Jordan of the American Civil Liberties Union, who works on education equity issues across the country. “They don’t want to be seen as shutting down all the disability claims,” he said.

But complaints typically investigated by the OCR, many related to discrimination against students of color, do not align with Trump’s priorities on racial bias, which so far have related to prejudice against white students.

“They will pick up race cases once people file, essentially, reverse discrimination complaints,” Jordan said.

The OCR, in fact, decided this month that it would investigate a complaint filed in August by the Equal Protection Project, a conservative nonprofit, that alleges the Ithaca City School District in New York excluded white students by hosting an event called the Students of Color Summit. The Biden administration had not acted on the complaint, but new Education Department leaders decided within days that the agency would proceed with an investigation.

Thursday’s memo also included a “revised” case manual, which details how the office will investigate and resolve complaints that allege violations of civil rights law. During the previous administration, investigators had the authority to open “systemic” inquiries when there was evidence of widespread civil rights issues or multiple complaints of the same type of discrimination at a school district or college. That ability to launch wider investigations appears to have been stripped under Trump; there is no mention of systemic investigations in the new manual.

The manual also no longer includes gender-neutral references; people alleging violations of “their” rights have been replaced by “his or her” in Trump’s updated version. That aligns with his recent anti-transgender policies and his view that there are only two genders.

The shifts at the OCR come as Trump has called the Education Department a “con job” and is expected to issue an executive order that it be dismantled. Last week, Trainor told schools and colleges that they have two weeks to eliminate race as a factor in admissions, financial aid, hiring and training or risk losing federal funding.

“Under any banner, discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin is, has been, and will continue to be illegal,” Trainor wrote.

During the past two weeks, the Trump administration has terminated contracts totaling hundreds of millions of dollars that mostly focused on education research and data on learning and the country’s schools. The cuts were made at the behest of Elon Musk’s cost-cutting crew, known as the Department of Government Efficiency, which said it also ended dozens of training grants for educators that it deemed wasteful.

But recent contract terminations touted by Musk’s team as ridding the department of “waste” and ending “diversity” programs also abruptly ended services for some students with disabilities.

Andre Alexander went from one bank to the next in 2016 to try to secure funding for his church’s nonprofit. After meeting with four banking institutions in the St. Louis area, Alexander finally secured a loan to fund the Tabernacle Community Development Corp. Alexander is the lead pastor of Tabernacle, a church in north St. […]

A 5 On Your Side Weather Impact Alert has been issued through Friday morning as the bitter cold lingers.

Alex Belkofer, CM-BIM, has been named to the Engineering News-Record’s national Top 20 Under 40 list of young innovators. As senior virtual design in construction director at McCarthy Building Cos., Belkofer is a technology pioneer and evangelist who’s striving to remain at the forefront of the construction industry’s digital transformation. Belkofer works closely with project […]

After spending 36 years inside the Farmington Correctional Center, December 20th, Paige Spears got word that his sentence was commuted by Gov. Mike Parson.

In federal court, Justin Gaither admitted to assaulting the man in 2022 while on duty. He's still awaiting trial on another case when he was with another department.

Donald Trump fired a few thousand Park Service workers, but apparently Doug Burgham has decided to hire them back. Efficiency! However, the one maintenance guy at Yosemite who has the keys to unlock people from the bathrooms remains fired. Elon Musk got mad at Danish astronaut Andreas Morgensen and called him "fully retarded." The contretemps ...continue reading "Folie à deux in the White House"

Donald Trump spent the four years between presidential terms complaining about a “stolen” election. He — and his enablers — made multiple baseless claims about election fraud and claimed the entire system was rigged against him. His lawyers and supporters suggested voting machines were so insecure that the Venezuelan government itself might have been involved […]

From Offsite Builder:  Residential modular home factories have a looming problem that, if left unaddressed, will lower sales volume and take years to correct. The longer the problem festers, the more expensive it will be to fix. It’s also an insidious problem because it operates in slow motion, and because many factory owners and managers […]

From Area Development:  The Detroit factory where Henry Ford first began mass-producing automobiles had a transformative impact not just on the auto industry but on manufacturing and business practices across all industries. However, that factory was singular in purpose—assembling a Model T as quickly and uniformly as possible. Today, while optimal efficiency in production remains […]

From West Newsmagazine:  Creve Coeur has begun the process of trying to rectify ongoing residential flooding issues, according to City Engineer Steven Berecz. At the Feb. 10 Council meeting, the City Council unanimously passed a resolution that would pay Trekk Design LLC an additional $51,692 for near-term stormwater fixes, increasing Trekk’s total agreement with the […]

Beck Flavors, based in Maryland Heights, is attempting to trademark “Louligan” and “Louligans” on behalf of an unidentified client that wants to use the name on a beverage.

Thursday morning two dozen candidates took the first step on a path that could be life-changing for them. They had showed up at the St. Louis County Workforce Jobs Center at The Crossings at Northwest Plaza. They were there to learn more about joining the first cohort of a pilot certified survey technician apprenticeship program. […]

From St. Louis Magazine:  This morning, the Missouri Historical Society unveils its “We Are St. Louis” campaign. The $36 million initiative will pay for two sweeping new exhibits at the Missouri History Museum, an expansion of programming, and a major digital push showcasing its collection online. But for all those ambitions, Jody Sowell, the organization’s […]

In 2025, Missouri residents should be afforded the opportunity to shop for an energy plan that best meets their needs, writes Chris Ercoli of the Retail Energy Advancement League.

Three years after it was founded, the organization has more than 4,200 members of different ages and walks of life.

WOOD RIVER – The Wood River Fire Department honored Engineer/Paramedic Tyler Staicoff with a 2024 Firefighter of the Year Award for his excellent performance at Tuesday’s City Council meeting. Fire Chief Wade Stahlhut said each year, award winners are selected by their department peers for exemplifying the qualities of a firefighter, including bravery, dedication, selflessness, resilience, and more. “This year, our first Firefighter of the Year Award goes to someone who has truly made an impact felt throughout the entire department,” Stahlhut said. “Engineer/Paramedic Tyler Staicoff has demonstrated extraordinary commitment not only in responding to emergencies, but maintaining a high level of commitment in his fire and medical training, fitness, mentoring fellow firefighters, engaging with community members on prevention education, and continuously striving for excellence with the desire to do more.” Stahlhut noted Staicoff’s involvement

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