On Nov. 20, the U.S. Department of Education (USDOE) announced revisions to the Office for Civil Rights’ (OCR) Case Processing Manual (CPM).  CPM, which was last revised in March 2018, sets guidelines for OCR field investigators in the complaint investigation and OCR rule and regulation compliance processes. Many of the March 2018 revisions remain. USDOE notes in its press release that the main changes from this most recent revision deal with:

  1. The interplay between the First Amendment and investigation and resolution of complaints;
  2. The appeals process in relation to certain types of dismissals and appeals based on insufficient evidence;
  3. Removal of language regarding OCR dismissal of complaints that are part of a pattern and place an unreasonable burden on OCR resources.

You can access the full OCR CPM on OCR’s website.

Posted by Megan E. Greulich on 11/30/2018