Discrimination has become a point of focus at Maricopa Community Colleges in Phoenix, Arizona, as the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights has launched an investigation of some of the practices of the college system. The investigations are in response to concerns raised over two key issues: the request for immigration status from some students and the failure to provide appropriate services to non-English speaking students.
Concerns Raised by Civil Rights Center
Concerns over these issues were initially raised mmigration status. Accordiby a non-profit organization based out of Phoenix, the Civil Rights Center. Information on this organization is limited, but according to a report in the New York Times last year, the bare-boned group is run out of the Phoenix home of its director, Silverio Garcia Jr. Last year, Garcia filed a class-action complaint with the Department of Education, alleging that teachers in Phoenix schools were improperly transferred due to speaking accents that some children had difficulty understanding.
“This was one culture telling another culture that you are not speaking correctly,” Garcia told the New York Times.
The complaint, filed in May 2010, was closed in late August 2011 after the state agreed to alter its policy, stating that only teachers who were fluent in English could teach students learning English. State officials said accents were not a part of their monitoring process to determine whether teachers should remain in the classroom.
This year, Silverio Garcia’s organization has once again targeted Phoenix
