Tag

#civil-rights

Violations of fundamental civil rights including equal protection, freedom from discrimination, voting rights, and access to public services. Covers rollbacks of civil rights protections and discriminatory government policies.

22 incidents

Grade 2 of 5: Major Abuse of Power

Department of Education: Near-Abolition and Mass Staff Terminations

The Department of Education serves approximately 50 million K-12 students through Title I funding to schools serving low-income students, special education grants under IDEA, and civil rights enforcement under Title IX and other statutes. It administers the federal student loan system covering 43 million borrowers. The mass staff reductions — 1,315 employees laid off in a reduction in force announced on March 11, 2025 (which, together with buyouts, roughly halved the department's staff) — severely affected the agency's capacity to process loan applications, investigate civil rights complaints, and distribute funding to schools. Schools serving the highest-need students, which depend most heavily on Title I funding, faced the greatest uncertainty.

Grade 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation

Second-Term Transgender Military Ban: Executive Order 14183

The second-term ban was broader and more immediately disruptive than the first-term version. Executive Order 14183 directed the Secretary of Defense to update medical standards within 60 days and to issue implementing guidance within 30 days, mandating that transgender service members serve in their birth sex or face discharge. Service members who had been receiving hormone therapy and other gender-affirming medical care under a Biden-era policy would have that care immediately terminated. Legal challenges were filed promptly; district courts issued preliminary injunctions in March 2025, and in May 2025 the Supreme Court stayed one of them. Estimates of the number affected range from the 4,240 service members the Pentagon said in December 2024 had been diagnosed with gender dysphoria to advocacy estimates of about 15,000 transgender service members.

Grade 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation

George Floyd Protests: Lafayette Square Clearing, Militarized Response, Threat to Invoke Insurrection Act

The clearing of Lafayette Square occurred approximately 30 minutes before the 7:00 PM curfew was to take effect. Independent investigators and journalists documented that the protesters were peaceful at the time of the clearing. The Park Police used pepper balls and OC spray; the Interior Inspector General found three dispersal warnings were broadcast by loudspeaker but not everyone could hear them, and that CS gas used nearby on 17th Street was deployed by D.C. police. Trump had convened a call with governors the same day, calling them 'weak' and urging them to 'dominate' protesters. Attorney General Barr appeared in person to supervise the clearing. The Bible photo-op that followed was condemned by Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde, whose church was used as a prop without her knowledge or consent.

Grade 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation

Lafayette Square: Federal Officers Forcibly Clear Protesters Before Curfew, Minutes Before Trump's Church Photo Op

Tear gas, pepper spray, and mounted police were deployed against peaceful protesters who were within their legal rights to be in Lafayette Square until the 7 PM curfew. The clearing operation began approximately 30 minutes before the curfew. Once the square was cleared, Trump walked out of the White House to St. John's Church, stood in front of it holding a Bible, and had photographs taken. The Episcopal bishop whose church was used said she was 'outraged' and had not been notified. Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley later apologized for participating in the walk. Defense Secretary Esper publicly opposed using active-duty troops as Trump had suggested.

Grade 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation

Children in Detention: Overcrowded Border Facilities and Humanitarian Conditions

The DHS Inspector General's July 2, 2019 management alert documented conditions at Border Patrol facilities in the Rio Grande Valley: some single adults held for over a month in overcrowded cells, standing room only conditions, limited access to showers and clean clothing, insufficient food, and inadequate medical care. The Clint facility conditions, documented by attorneys visiting to conduct interviews, included children sleeping on floors, a 2-year-old with dirty clothes, limited access to soap and toothbrushes, and sick children not separated from healthy ones. The administration's response was that the facilities were overwhelmed by a surge in arrivals and that Congress needed to provide additional funding.

Grade 1 of 5: Significant Democratic Concern

MS-13 'Animals' and Dehumanizing Rhetoric: Using Gang Labels to Target Immigrant Communities

Trump's use of 'animals' to describe MS-13 members — and his conflation of the gang label with immigrants broadly — followed the same pattern documented in incitement to ethnic violence: dehumanization of a group, followed by calls for harsh treatment. Scholars of political violence noted the specific language echoed anti-Tutsi propaganda before the Rwandan genocide and Nazi propaganda before the Holocaust. Trump used similar dehumanizing framing for other immigrant groups, describing Central American migrants as an 'infestation' and an 'invasion.'

Grade 2 of 5: Major Abuse of Power

Census Citizenship Question: Fabricated Justification, Intended to Undercount Minorities

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross claimed the Census Bureau had been asked by the DOJ to add the citizenship question for Voting Rights enforcement. This explanation was false: Ross had asked the DOJ to request the question, not the reverse. The Supreme Court ruled the pretext was evident and blocked the question. In late May 2019, before the decision, documents from the hard drives of Thomas Hofeller — a Republican redistricting expert who died in 2018 — revealed he had written a study years earlier stating that a citizenship question would allow Republicans to draw districts based on citizen (rather than total) population, 'which would be advantageous to Republicans and non-Hispanic whites.' The documents suggest the question originated in a redistricting strategy its author said would advantage Republicans and non-Hispanic whites.

Grade 1 of 5: Significant Democratic Concern

Shithole Countries: Documented Racist Immigration Comments in White House Meeting

The meeting was called to discuss a bipartisan immigration framework. Present were Senators Durbin (D-IL), Graham (R-SC), Flake (R-AZ), Perdue (R-GA), Cotton (R-AR), and others, along with DHS Secretary Nielsen. Multiple attendees confirmed the substance of the comments. The 'shithole' characterization was directed at Haiti and African nations; Trump contrasted them with Norway, where he had met with the prime minister the previous day. Nielsen testified to Congress that she did not recall the exact words used. Perdue and Cotton initially said they did not recall the President 'saying those comments specifically', then denied he had said 'shithole' — a position contradicted by Durbin's account; Sen. Tim Scott said Graham had confirmed the remark to him.

Grade 2 of 5: Major Abuse of Power

DACA Rescission: Ending Protection for 800,000 Childhood Arrivals

DACA recipients — sometimes called Dreamers — had arrived in the United States as children, had lived here for years or decades, had submitted to background checks, and had registered with the government in reliance on the Obama administration's promise of temporary protection. Sessions announced the rescission by describing immigrants in terms that critics said echoed nativist rhetoric. The administration's stated legal basis was that DACA was an unconstitutional executive overreach; the Supreme Court did not reach this question, instead finding the rescission procedurally defective — the DHS Secretary had failed to adequately explain the agency's reasoning as required by the APA.

Grade 1 of 5: Significant Democratic Concern

Charlottesville: 'Very Fine People on Both Sides' After Neo-Nazi Violence

The Unite the Right rally was organized by neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups, included marchers with torches chanting 'Jews will not replace us' on the night of August 11, and included violence against counter-protesters on August 12 before James Alex Fields Jr. drove into the crowd. Fields was later convicted of first-degree murder and federal hate crimes. Trump's August 15 press conference response defended those attending the rally as 'people who were very fine people' who were there because they 'protested the taking down of a statue' of Robert E. Lee, and drew a moral equivalence between the white supremacist rally and counter-protesters. Republican leaders including Paul Ryan, John McCain, Mitt Romney, and both former President Bushes publicly criticized the 'both sides' framing.

Grade 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation

Transgender Military Ban: Exclusion of Transgender Service Members via Tweet

Trump's tweet announcing the transgender military ban was not coordinated with military leadership. The Joint Chiefs issued an unusual public statement saying they would not change policy until they received 'formal guidance.' Multiple federal courts issued injunctions blocking the original ban. After losing court cases, the administration issued a modified 'Mattis plan' that imposed restrictions based on gender dysphoria treatment; it was implemented in 2019 and reversed by Biden in 2021. An estimated 14,700 transgender people were serving in the military.

Grade 2 of 5: Major Abuse of Power

Betsy DeVos: Rollback of Student Borrower Protections, For-Profit College Deregulation

DeVos, a billionaire Michigan donor with ties to the for-profit education industry through her family's investment portfolio, was confirmed in February 2017 in a 50-50 Senate vote — the first cabinet confirmation requiring Vice President Pence's tiebreaking vote in history. She immediately moved to suspend the Obama administration's Borrower Defense to Repayment rules, which provided a path for students defrauded by schools to have their federal loans discharged. More than 100,000 borrower defense applications accumulated while DeVos's department delayed processing them. Courts found the delays violated federal law. She also rescinded the Gainful Employment rule that required for-profit programs to demonstrate graduates could earn enough to service their student debt.

Grade 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation

Travel Ban Expansions: From Muslim Ban to Permanent Entry Restrictions

The travel ban evolved through three executive orders as earlier versions were blocked by courts for discriminatory purpose and due process violations. The third version added non-Muslim-majority countries to provide legal cover, and was upheld by the Supreme Court 5-4 in June 2018. The Court's majority assumed it could look behind the proclamation but applied only deferential rational-basis review, under which the national-security justification sufficed despite Trump's public statements calling for a Muslim ban; Sotomayor's dissent quoted those statements at length and compared the ruling to Korematsu v. United States.

Grade 2 of 5: Major Abuse of Power

First-Term LGBTQ Rollbacks: Transgender Military Ban, Healthcare Protections, Bathroom Guidance

Trump's first executive actions on LGBTQ issues included rescinding a 2016 guidance protecting transgender students' bathroom access in public schools. In July 2017, Trump tweeted the military ban without notifying the Joint Chiefs; the tweet came after DOD had already been studying how to implement transgender service. The administration also reversed Obama-era healthcare anti-discrimination guidance, removed LGBTQ survey questions from the Census and government surveys, and reversed protections for LGBTQ workers in federal contracting. The Supreme Court ultimately ruled in June 2020 that Title VII's prohibition on sex discrimination covers LGBTQ workers.

Grade 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation

Muslim Ban Day One: Airport Detentions, Legal Chaos, Federal Stays

The executive order was signed without coordination with the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department, the Department of Defense, or the intelligence community. Customs and Border Protection received no guidance before implementation. Within hours, hundreds of travelers from the seven countries — including green card holders, refugees, and visa holders — were detained at airports or turned away from flights. Federal judges in New York, Massachusetts, Virginia, and Washington state issued emergency stays within 24-48 hours. The order was eventually replaced by revised versions that were also challenged legally; the Supreme Court upheld the third version in Trump v. Hawaii (2018).

Grade 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation

Travel Ban: Muslim-Majority Country Restrictions Through Three Iterations

The travel ban's anti-Muslim intent was documented in Trump's own public statements: before the first order, Trump had called for 'a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States'; Rudy Giuliani publicly stated Trump had asked him how to create 'a Muslim ban' legally. The first order's implementation — without agency coordination, applying immediately to green card holders, causing chaos and hundreds of detentions at airports — forced a broad injunction within hours. Courts repeatedly found discriminatory intent. The Supreme Court ultimately upheld the third version, with Chief Justice Roberts's majority explicitly declining to assess whether the stated national security justification was pretextual.

Grade 1 of 5: Significant Democratic Concern

2016 Campaign Rally Violence: Rhetoric Encouraging Supporters Against Protesters

Trump's 2016 campaign rallies were sites of documented violence against protesters, often preceded by Trump's encouragement from the stage. Trump offered to pay legal fees for supporters who assaulted protesters, described violence against protesters nostalgically, and encouraged crowds. Multiple protesters were punched, kicked, shoved, or sprayed with mace. A lawsuit by protesters shoved at a Louisville rally survived a motion to dismiss in 2017, but in 2018 the Sixth Circuit ordered the incitement-to-riot claim against Trump dismissed, holding his words protected by the First Amendment.

Outside the grading scale: Pre-Office Conduct

Birther Campaign: Five-Year Campaign Questioning Obama's U.S. Birth, Racist Delegitimization

The birther conspiracy theory — the claim that Obama was born in Kenya or elsewhere outside the U.S. — had no factual basis. Hawaii state officials repeatedly confirmed the birth certificate's authenticity. Obama released both a short-form and long-form birth certificate. Federal courts dismissed challenges to Obama's eligibility. The theory persisted in certain quarters as a form of racial delegitimization of the first Black president. Trump became its most prominent mainstream advocate, using it to build his political profile before his 2016 presidential campaign. Trump's 2016 acknowledgment that Obama was born in the U.S. came without apology and included the false claim that Clinton had started the birther controversy.

Outside the grading scale: Pre-Office Conduct

E. Jean Carroll: Jury Finds Sexual Abuse and Defamation; $83.3 Million Damages

Carroll, a longtime advice columnist, alleged Trump attacked her in the dressing room of Bergdorf Goodman in Manhattan in approximately 1996. Trump denied knowing her and described her as 'not my type.' The jury in May 2023 found Trump liable for sexual abuse (not rape, under the definition in New York law at the time) and defamation, awarding $5 million. In her first suit, over Trump's June 2019 denials, Judge Kaplan found Trump liable for defamation on summary judgment in September 2023, and in January 2024 a jury awarded $83.3 million in compensatory and punitive damages — one of the largest defamation awards in U.S. history. The Supreme Court declined to review the $5 million verdict on June 29, 2026 and denied rehearing on August 17, 2026; the Second Circuit rejected Trump's appeal of the $83.3 million award on September 8, 2025, and Trump, joined by the Justice Department, petitioned the Supreme Court in July 2026. Multiple other women made similar allegations; Trump denied all.

Outside the grading scale: Pre-Office Conduct

Central Park Five: Full-Page Ads Calling for Death Penalty, Refused to Apologize After Exoneration

The five teenagers — Yusef Salaam, Kevin Richardson, Antron McCray, Raymond Santana, and Korey Wise — were 14 to 16 years old at the time of their arrest. They gave videotaped confessions after hours of unrecorded interrogation, recanted within weeks, and said the statements were coerced; the trial judge ruled the statements voluntary and admissible, and no court has made a finding of coercion. Their convictions were vacated in 2002 on the newly discovered evidence. In 2002, Matias Reyes confessed to the attack; DNA evidence confirmed his account and proved the five had not committed the rape. The city of New York settled with them for $41 million in 2014. Trump called the settlement 'a disgrace' and continued to maintain the five were guilty. On October 21, 2024 the five sued Trump for defamation in federal court in Philadelphia over his statements about them in the September 10, 2024 debate. His 1989 ads ran in the New York Times, Daily News, New York Post, and New York Newsday.

Outside the grading scale: Pre-Office Conduct

Sexual Misconduct Allegations: At Least 28 Women Beyond the E. Jean Carroll Civil Verdict

The women who accused Trump of sexual misconduct covered a range of circumstances: models and contestants at Trump-owned beauty pageants, women at events and parties, employees in business settings, and strangers at social venues. The common elements across many accounts were unwanted kissing or groping in private settings with no witnesses. After the October 2016 Access Hollywood tape, in which Trump said 'when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab 'em by the pussy,' multiple women came forward stating the tape described what Trump had done to them. Trump called all accusers liars and threatened to sue them.

Outside the grading scale: Pre-Office Conduct

Housing Discrimination: DOJ Lawsuit Against Trump Management Corporation for Racial Discrimination

The DOJ brought one of the largest housing discrimination lawsuits of 1973 against the Trumps, alleging their agents told Black rental applicants apartments were not available when they were available to white applicants, coded applications by race, and directed minority applicants to housing in predominantly Black neighborhoods. Trump denied the allegations vigorously and counterattacked the DOJ. The company settled in 1975 and was sued again in 1978 for violating the decree.