9 hours Ago By Victoria DeLano as told to Julia Métraux
Mother Jones illustration; Photo courtesy of Victoria DeLano On February 12, Victoria DeLano was fired from her job in the Department of Education ‘s Office for Civil Rights , a position she took in late December. Her termination—by phone, without the written notice required by law—came the day after the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” announced that it had terminated around $900 million worth of contracts and a further $100 million in what it said were “DEI training grants.” In her position, DeLano investigated allegations of discrimination, including alleged violations of educational plans and accommodations for disabled students.
Based on her experience at the department, DeLano believes she was its only DOE civil rights investigator based in Alabama. Asked whether any civil rights investigators from their department remained in Alabama, a spokesperson for the Education Department declined to comment “on specific personnel matters due to privacy concerns .” I spoke with DeLano this past week; here is her experience in her own words.
In September, I saw the job posting to work in the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights while sitting in a doctor’s office. It hit me: I can’t believe that my dream job is being posted here. I had to jump on it for a whole host of reasons.
One, I am a person with disabilities myself—people who have disabilities, including invisible disabilities like myself, oftentimes are not well understood, so I bring that perspective. I also have a 19-year-old who is disabled, whose disabilities are genetic. I came from my first career being a college educator, so I have this particular interest in the public education system being accessible to everyone in our country.
OCR covers education systems, from the tiniest of students through adults going to universities, college trade schools, all of us accessing our public libraries, all of us accessing our museums, all of these things fall under that jurisdiction. To me, those are the places that are the foundation of our communities. I need people to understand that Alabama needs OCR.
I live in a state where we have schools that are still under federal desegregation orders. Do people in our country really think it’s best to put this back in the hands of the states? Because we still haven’t gotten out from under that. We have schools in my state that still tell the kids in wheelchairs to enter by the trash dumpster.
Do we still want to regress from there, where students with disabilities are in institutions and not in public? The union sent out an email that said they were hearing [about] some terminations of probationary employees. I immediately went to my government computer, logged in, and I didn’t have to go through all the security checks—which was a huge red flag, because government computers are locked down. Immediately, I pulled my document that I was keeping track of every bit of work that I’ve been doing, which was redacted.
I’m a meticulous note-taker, and I wanted to make sure that I was tracking my progress. I immediately texted my supervisor, I said, “Don’t take your time off, this is your evening, but this is the situation.” Within an hour, I received two phone calls from people higher up the chain of command saying they were sorry, that their understanding was that I had been terminated.
The next afternoon, I received a call from someone up the chain of command who said, “We looked into this. The Department of Education doesn’t have anything in writing for you. This decision was made by OPM, the Office of Personnel Management, and it was not performance-based, but we don’t have anything in writing to give you.
” I was left not knowing anything. After that happened, until I just kept emailing various people within human resources, and finally [on February 18] late afternoon, I received my letter of termination that was dated [the previous] Wednesday. My letter of termination says that I was terminated because I was a probationary employee.
Nothing about my equipment, nothing about my benefits, nothing about my rights as a probationary employee, You’re supposed to be given notice in advance if the termination is not based on your performance, if it’s a reduction in force. I did not get it in advance. I didn’t even get it the day of.
I got it six days later. There’s all these steps in place, right? None of those steps were followed. I’m really horrified by this for my state, specifically.
I recognize that there are other states in our countries that have robust programs in place to investigate acts of discrimination, and that’s not the case in my state. I worked for the protection and advocacy agency in Alabama, which is supposed to have oversight for people with disabilities, doing the investigations, and I ended up turning whistleblower during my employment with them because so many cases were just being swept under the rug. The Administration for Community Living, which is a [Department of Health and Human Services]–funded grant provider that funds that program, did look into it, and did have findings of gross mismanagement.
I’m terrified for the children and adults in my state. I’ve sat with these children, and I’ve heard them say, “We want a better education. We want a better future.
” I always had the hope that there [would be] federal enforcement of these laws, and now I’m seeing the dismantling of that enforcement agency. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity..
