In-School Deferment Statement Of Intent - Student Loan: Fill & Download for Free

“Worthy.” For whatever reason, it was written in lipstick on my ex-wife’s bathroom mirror. “You are enough.” This was in Sharpie on a makeup vanity in her bedroom. Sadly, she was neither. Eleven years prior, she was stuck in a dead-end job, raising three kids in a cramped little house, and struggling to get by. We had been dating about a year, and I had just bought a house big enough for us to all live in comfortably. She was constantly complaining about her job, especially her incompetent management, and I asked what she’d rather be doing. She said she always wanted to be a lawyer, but never had the opportunity to go to law school. I told her to take the LSAT and if she could get admitted, we’d make it happen.For the next three and a half years, she was in school full time or studying for the bar exam, and I did everything else. Her student loans covered tuition, books, and enough pocket money for her to get back and forth, but that was about it. My job paid all the bills to support us and her three teenagers, and I even took on extra work to give us a little breathing room. I was also Mr. Mom to the kids, taking care of all their needs because their biological dad always came up short. I wasn’t there for the diaper changing years, but I was there for the school trips, the phones, the computers, and the cars, and all of the expenses that come with the care and feeding of three ravenous teenagers and their friends. I seriously needed a loading dock that backed up to the kitchen.After she passed the bar exam and was sworn in, I breathed a sigh of relief knowing that we’d soon be back up to dual incomes, even if it took her a bit to get established. For the next eight years, I continued paying all the bills and taking care of all the household expenses, telling her to concentrate on getting her student loans knocked down so she could start saving for retirement. Little did I know, she had no interest in doing that and was morphing into a financial monster.Her spending habits were out of control. If she saw it and wanted it, she bought it, without even looking at the price. She even started subscribing to various “boxes” that would arrive regularly whether she needed them or not. Some were groceries, some were snacks, and some were clothing. It was as if she was trying to invent ways to spend money. Going out to eat at a restaurant turned into an embarrassment. By the time we were seated, she would have already put in an order for two or three different appetizers, and when she ordered her entrée, the included sides weren’t enough, so she’d add at least a couple more. Dessert, or desserts, was mandatory, and would always be accompanied by coffee or cappuccino. Depending on where we were, a $150 bottle of champagne wasn’t out of the question. She’d either leave all of the leftovers on the table or take them home until they needed to be thrown away. There was never a speck of consideration for the waste that she created.Unfortunately, I married her anyway, not fully understanding the ride I was in for. The first year we were married, she didn’t bother paying in any taxes, expecting me to take care of that for her. So, along with not having any financial responsibilities, she thought she was entitled to every dollar she made without any of the tax implications. I put a quick stop to that, but the other behavior continued, and it kept getting more bizarre. She started going into the office later and later, and it wasn’t unusual at all for her to not leave the house before 10 a.m., but she was always home by 5 p.m., and never did any work on the weekends. Any time I asked about her practice or how her debt payoff was going, she was quick to tell me she was taking care of it and to mind my own business.I was going through a box of random papers one day and came across something unfamiliar, and as I was trying to figure out what it was, I realized it was one of her student loan statements that had somehow gotten mixed up in the pile I was dealing with. This is how I found out she had let her student loans balloon to over $250,000 by deferring them as long as she could and then only paying the absolute minimum payments. Since she had signed up for a program where her payments were based upon her income, most months she wasn’t even covering the interest, and the balance continued to build.Along with going in late and always being home by 5 p.m., I found that she was using her afternoons for all her personal appointments. Anytime she needed a manicure, pedicure, waxing, or massage, she scheduled those during afternoon working hours. This was in addition to her doctor and dentist appointments, and even included taking the dog to the vet when the vet’s office is open on Saturdays specifically to accommodate working people. The only thing she didn’t do during working hours was get her hair done, and that was because her stylist was three hours away and required a Saturday day trip.So, she was spending every dime she made, wasn’t saving anything for retirement, was working as little as possible, wasn’t responsible for any household expenses, including vacations, and let her student loans grow out of control to the point they were more debt than our house. I had reached my breaking point. I confronted her and told her that I had no intention of financially supporting her through the entirety of her life after sacrificing for years to give her every opportunity to succeed, and that if she continued to squander her career and every dollar she made, she was going to be sitting home alone while I was traveling the world and enjoying the benefits of my retirement planning. Instead of doing anything to change her behavior to put her in a better financial position, she accused me of only valuing her for whatever income she could provide, moved out, and filed for divorce.After all the years of sacrificing I did to support her dreams, she was gone. I turned down better jobs because I didn’t want the additional stress of a career change to upset the status quo. I neglected my family and friends to take care of her and the kids, and even took on extra work so that they wouldn’t have to worry about not being able to have what they needed. I shorted my investments, giving up some of my future wealth for what they needed then. In everything I did, I was always willing to do whatever it took to succeed for us as a family. The sacrifices were for a purpose. The long hours were for a reason. The commitment to their success was unwavering. Then she just shit all over everything and walked awayA year later, I was still hoping that she might come to her senses and repair the chasm between us, but that didn’t happen. Her entire life is still a mess. One of the kids totaled a car, so she bought a new one for herself and handed hers off to them, increasing her debt another $40k. You still couldn’t get a week’s worth of groceries in her refrigerator for all of the nonsensical crap in there. She put up three Christmas trees in the house but won’t take the time to deal with some boxes in the garage to get her brand-new car in there. She’ll watch the entire 40-season run of Survivor reruns but won’t take the time to learn the least bit of home repair. If it’s not in the moment, it doesn’t matter. If it’s a choice between responsibility and entertainment, entertainment wins every single time.So, I’m 15 months single and done with all of that nonsense, and I am looking forward to my next adventure with somebody that is much more reasonable.

This list is not counting Trump threatening to nuke Iran or fast-tracking oil drilling in nature reserves in Alaska (which happened last week). Nor does it count his march against science, the environment nor any of his perverse sexual, unpatriotic, or just downright rude personal faux pas.No… this is simply a list of all of his human rights violations.Trump Administration Civil and Human Rights RollbacksSince Trump took office in January 2017, his administration has worked aggressively to turn back the clock on (y)our nation’s civil and human rights progress. Here’s how.2017On January 27, Trump signed an executive order – the first version of his Muslim ban – that discriminated against Muslims and banned refugees.On January 31, under new Chairman Ajit Pai’s leadership, the Federal Communications Commission refused to defend critical components of its prison phone rate rules in federal court – rules that were ultimately struck down in June.On February 3, Trump signed an executive order outlining principles for regulating the U.S. financial system and calling for a 120-day review of existing laws, like the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The order was viewed as Trump’s opening attack on consumer protection laws.On February 3, the FCC rescinded its 2014 Joint Sales Agreement (JSA) guidance, which had led to the only increase in television diversity in recent years.On February 3, FCC Chairman Pai revoked the Lifeline Broadband Provider (LBP) designations for nine broadband service providers, reducing the number of providers offering broadband and thus decreasing the competitive forces available to drive down prices.On February 7, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy supporting H.J. Res. 57, a resolution under the Congressional Review Act to overturn a Department of Education accountability rule that clarifies states’ obligations under the Every Student Succeeds Act. The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights opposes this resolution.On February 9, Trump signed three executive orders “to fight crime, gangs, and drugs; restore law and order; and support the dedicated men and women of law enforcement.” The orders, though vague, were viewed suspiciously by civil rights organizations.On February 10, Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell of Washington wrote to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos after the centralized resource website for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) became inaccessible to the public for more than a week. On February 17, DeVos issued a statement blaming the previous administration for neglecting the site.On February 21, the Department of Homeland Security issued a memo updating immigration enforcement guidance, massively expanding the number of people subject to detention and deportation. The guidance drastically increased the use of expedited removal and essentially eliminated the priorities for deportation.On February 22, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights jointly rescinded Title IX guidance clarifying protections under the law for transgender students.On February 23, Attorney General Sessions withdrew an earlier Justice Department memo that set a goal of reducing and ultimately ending the department’s use of private prisons.On February 27, the Department of Justice dropped the federal government’s longstanding position that a Texas voter ID law under legal challenge was intentionally racially discriminatory, despite having successfully advanced that argument in multiple federal courts. The district court subsequently rejected the position of the Sessions Justice Department and concluded the law was passed with discriminatory intent.On March 6, the Department of Justice withdrew its motion for a preliminary injunction against North Carolina’s anti-transgender HB 2 law.On March 6, Trump signed a revised executive order restricting travel to the United States by citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen and drastically cutting back refugee admissions.On March 6, a week after Trump called on lawmakers to repeal the Affordable Care Act during his address to Congress, House Republicans released a proposal to replace the ACA with a law that would end the Medicaid program as we know it and defund Planned Parenthood.On March 6, the Department of Health and Human Services proposed ending the collection of data on LGBTQ individuals with disabilities, removing questions on LGBTQ demographics from the Centers for Independent Living Annual Program Performance Report survey.On March 10, the Department of Housing and Urban Development withdrew a survey proposed in the Federal Register meant to assess the efficacy and replicability of HUD-funded programs to address LGBTQ youth homelessness. According to its own data, 40 percent of young people experiencing homelessness identify as LGBTQ, so ensuring that its programs are adequately meeting the needs of young LGBTQ people is critical to HUD meeting its own mission. After significant public outcry, the assessment survey was eventually reinstated.On March 13, the Department of Health and Human Services released a draft of the annual National Survey of Older Americans Act Participants, which gathers data on people who receive services funded through the Older Americans Act. HHS’s draft collection instrument omitted the questions on sexual orientation and gender identity asked on the previous year’s survey. After receiving nearly 14,000 comments on the data collection proposal and after facing bipartisan opposition from Congress, HHS restored the question on sexual orientation but omitted a question that yielded information on gender identity.On March 16, the Trump administration released a budget blueprint that proposed a $54 billion increase in military spending that would come from $54 billion in direct cuts to non-defense programs. The blueprint also proposed spending $4.1 billion through 2018 on the beginnings of construction of a wall through communities on the U.S.-Mexico border.On March 17, the Department of Housing and Urban Development removed links to four key resource documents from its website, which informed emergency shelters on best practices for serving transgender people facing homelessness and complying with HUD regulations.On March 22, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy supporting H.R. 1628, the American Health Care Act, which The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights opposes. The White House issued a statement supporting the Senate’s motion to proceed to this legislation on July 24.On March 27, Trump signed a resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act, which repealed a Department of Education accountability rule finalized last year that would clarify states’ obligations under the Every Student Succeeds Act.On March 27, Trump signed a resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act, which repealed the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Executive Order. The order, signed by President Obama, represented a much-needed step forward in ensuring that the federal contractor community is providing safe and fair workplaces for employees by encouraging compliance with federal labor and civil rights laws, and prohibiting the use of mandatory arbitration of certain disputes.On March 29, the U.S. Census Bureau asserted that there was “no federal data need” to justify the collection of sexual orientation and gender identity data in the American Community Survey (ACS). The bureau’s original submission to Congress included a table suggesting that it planned to collect data on sexual orientation and gender identity in the ACS starting in the next iteration of the survey – but by the end of the day, the bureau hastily removed any reference to these topics in a revised submission. During the Obama administration, at least four federal agencies asked the bureau to add these questions.On March 29, The Washington Post reported that the Department of Education decided to terminate the Opening Doors, Expanding Opportunity grant program, which helps local districts devise ways to boost socioeconomic diversity within their schools.In a March 31 memo, Sessions ordered a sweeping review of consent decrees with law enforcement agencies relating to police conduct – a crucial tool in the Justice Department’s efforts to ensure constitutional and accountable policing. The department also tried, unsuccessfully, to block a federal court in Baltimore from approving a consent decree between the city and the Baltimore Police Department to rein in discriminatory police practices that the department itself had negotiated over a multi-year period.On April 3, Attorney General Jeff Sessions tried to back out of a consent decree to address civil rights violations by the Baltimore Police Department.On April 11, the administration proposed removing a question from the National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH) regarding preschool suspension and expulsion. Without access to valid and reliable data, parents, advocates, educators, service providers, researchers, policymakers, and the public will not have the information they need to ensure early childhood settings are developmentally appropriate and nondiscriminatory.On April 13, Trump signed a resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act, which overturned the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ final rule updating the regulations governing the Title X family planning program – a vital source of family planning and related preventive care for low-income, uninsured, and young people across the country.On April 14, the Department of Justice voluntarily dismissed its lawsuit challenging North Carolina’s anti-transgender HB 2 after the law was modified – although private challenges continued.On April 26, Trump released an outline of a tax reform plan that was viewed largely as a tax giveaway for the wealthy and big corporations.On April 26, Trump signed an executive order directing Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos to conduct a study on the federal government’s role in education.On May 2, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy supporting H.R. 1180, the Working Families Flexibility Act, which The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights opposes.On May 4, Trump signed an executive order that he claimed overturned the Johnson Amendment (though it did not), which precludes tax-exempt organizations, including places of worship, from engaging in any political campaign activity and would curtail the contraception mandate of the Affordable Care Act.On May 11, Trump signed an executive order creating the so-called Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity headed by Vice President Mike Pence and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who has a history of trying to suppress the vote in Kansas.On May 12, Sessions announced in a two-page memo that DOJ was abandoning its Smart on Crime initiative that had been hailed as a positive step forward in rehabilitating drug users and reducing the enormous costs of warehousing inmates.On May 23, Trump released his fiscal year 2018 budget that included massive, unnecessary tax cuts for the wealthy and large corporations, which would be paid for by slashing basic living standards for the most vulnerable and by attacking critical programs like Social Security Disability Insurance, Medicaid, food assistance, and more.On May 23, Trump’s fiscal year 2018 budget proposed eliminating the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) and transferring its functions to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). This would have impeded the work of both the OFCCP and the EEOC as each have distinct missions and expertise, and would have thereby undermined the civil rights protections that employers and workers have relied on for almost 50 years.On June 5, Trump released an infrastructure plan that focuses on putting public assets into private hands, creating another giveaway to wealthy corporations and millionaires at the expense of working families and communities.On June 6, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued unclear new instructions on transgender student discrimination.On June 8, OCR’s acting head sent a memo to OCR staff discouraging systemic investigations in favor of individual investigations of discrimination.On June 14, DeVos decided to delay implementation of and to renegotiate the Borrower Defense to Repayment and Gainful Employment regulations – important regulations that had been designed to protect students from predatory conduct by for-profit schools.On June 14, the Department of Education withdrew, without explanation, a 2016 finding that an Ohio school district discriminated against a transgender girl.On June 15, the administration rescinded President Obama’s Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) program, an initiative that – had it gone into effect – would have offered a pathway to citizenship for immigrant parents with children who are citizens or residents of the United States.On June 27, Labor Secretary Acosta requested information on the Obama-era overtime rule, signaling his intent to lower the salary threshold of the overtime rule.On June 27, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy supporting H.R. 3003, the No Sanctuary for Criminals Act, which The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights opposes.On June 27, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy supporting H.R. 3004, Kate’s Law, which The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights opposes.On June 28, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division sent a letter to 44 states demanding extensive information on how they maintain their voter rolls. This request was made on the same day that President Trump’s so-called Commission on Election Integrity sent letters to all 50 states demanding intrusive and highly sensitive personal data about all registered voters.On July 24, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy supporting H.J. Res 111, a resolution under the Congressional Review Act to overturn the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s final rule on forced arbitration clauses. The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights opposes the resolution. The White House issued a statement on October 24 opposing the Senate companion resolution.On July 26, Trump declared in a series of tweets that he was barring transgender people from serving in the military. He followed through with a presidential memo on August 25, though the issue is still being challenged in the courts.On July 26, the Department of Justice filed a legal brief arguing that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation – a decision that contravened recent court decisions and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidance.On August 1, The New York Times reported that the “Trump administration is preparing to redirect resources of the Justice Department’s civil rights division toward investigating and suing universities over affirmative action admissions policies deemed to discriminate against white applicants.” In a move without recent precedent, this investigation and enforcement effort was planned to be run out of the Civil Rights Division’s front office by political appointees, instead of by experienced career staff in the division’s educational opportunities section.On August 2, Trump announced his support of Republican-backed legislation that would slash legal immigration in half over a decade.On August 7, the Justice Department filed a brief in the Supreme Court in Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Institute arguing that it should be easier for states to purge registered voters from their rolls – reversing not only its longstanding legal interpretation, but also the position it had taken in the lower courts in that case.On August 28, Sessions lifted the Obama administration’s ban on the transfer of some military surplus items to domestic law enforcement – rescinding guidelines that were created in the wake of Ferguson to protect the public from law enforcement misuse of military-grade weapons.On September 5, Sessions announced that the administration was rescinding the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.On September 7, the Department of Justice filed a brief with the Supreme Court in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission arguing that businesses have a right to discriminate against LGBTQ customers.On September 12, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy supporting H.R. 3697, the Criminal Alien Gang Member Removal Act, which The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights opposes.On September 15, the Department of Justice ended the Community Oriented Policing Services’ Collaborative Reform Initiative, a Justice Department program that aimed to help build trust between police officers and the communities they serve.On September 22, DeVos announced that the Department of Education was rescinding guidance related to Title IX and schools’ obligations regarding sexual violence and educational opportunity.On September 24, Trump issued the third version of his Muslim ban which, unlike the previous versions, was of indefinite duration.On September 27, the Trump administration and Republican leadership in Congress unveiled tax principles that would provide trillions in dollars of unnecessary tax cuts to millionaires, billionaires, and wealthy corporations.On October 2, DeVos rescinded 72 guidance documents outlining the rights of students with disabilities, though it wasn’t until October 21 until the public learned of the rescissions.On October 4, the Department of Justice filed a brief in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia asking the court to dismiss a lawsuit against the president’s transgender military ban.On October 5, Sessions reversed a Justice Department policy which clarified that transgender workers are protected from discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.On October 6, the Department of Justice issued sweeping religious liberty guidance to federal agencies, which will create a license to discriminate against LGBTQ individuals and others.On October 8, the White House released a list of hard-line immigration principles – a list of demands that included funding a border wall, deporting Central American children seeking sanctuary, and curbing grants to sanctuary cities, effectively stalling any possible bipartisan agreement on a bill to protect Dreamers.On October 12, Trump signed an executive order to undermine health care and, later that day, announced that he would end subsidies for certain health care plans.On October 27, the Department of Education announced it was withdrawing nearly 600 policy documents regarding K-12 and higher education.On November 1, Trump signed a resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act, which repealed the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s rule on forced arbitration. Overturning the rule will enable big banks, payday lenders, and other financial companies to force victims of fraud, discrimination, or other unlawful conduct into a “kangaroo court” process where their claims are decided by hired arbitration firms rather than by judges and juries – harming consumers and undermining civil rights and consumer protection laws.On November 6, the Trump administration announced it will terminate the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation for Nicaragua.On November 14, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy supporting H.R. 1, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights opposes. The White House subsequently issued statements supporting this legislation on November 30 (the Senate version) and on December 18 (the conference report).On November 16, the Federal Communications Commission voted to gut Lifeline, the program dedicated to bringing phone and internet service within reach for people of color, low-income people, seniors, veterans, and people with disabilities, with particularly egregious consequences for tribal areas. They also voted to eliminate several rules promoting competition and diversity in the broadcast media, undermining ownership chances for women and people of color.On November 20, the Trump administration announced it would terminate the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation in 18 months for approximately 59,000 Haitians living in the United States.On November 24, Trump appointed Mick Mulvaney as acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). As a member of Congress, Mulvaney supported abolishing the consumer bureau and has in the past referred to the CFPB as a “sick, sad” joke.On December 4, the Department of Labor proposed changing its longstanding position codified in regulation that prohibited employers from pooling together tips and redistributing them to workers who don’t traditionally earn tips.On December 12, the Department of Justice wrote to acting Census Bureau Director Ron Jarmin requesting a question about citizenship on the 2020 Census. It was an untimely and unnecessarily intrusive request that would destroy any chance for an accurate count, discard years of careful research, and increase costs significantly.On December 21, it was reported that Sessions rescinded 25 guidance documents, including a letter sent to chief judges and court administrators to help state and local efforts to reform harmful practices of imposing fees and fines on poor people.2018On January 4, Sessions rescinded guidance that had allowed states, with minimal federal interference, to legalize marijuana. This move will further reignite the War on Drugs.On January 8, Trump re-nominated a slate of unqualified and biased judicial nominees, including two rated Not Qualified by the American Bar Association.On January 8, the administration announced it would terminate the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation for nearly 200,000 Salvadorans.On January 11, the Trump administration released new guidelines that allow states to seek waivers to require Medicaid recipients to work – requirements that represent a throwback to rejected racial stereotypes.On January 12, the Trump administration approved a waiver allowing Kentucky to require Medicaid recipients to work.On January 16, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau under Mulvaney’s leadership announced it would reconsider the agency’s payday lending rule.On January 17, the administration announced its decision to bar citizens from Haiti from receiving H2-A and H2-B visas.On January 18, the Department of Health and Human Services announced a proposed rule to allow health care providers to discriminate against patients, and within the department’s Office for Civil Rights, a new division – the Conscience and Religious Freedom Division – to address related claims.On January 18, the CFPB abruptly dropped a lawsuit against four online payday lenders who unlawfully made loans of up to 950 percent APR in at least 17 states.On January 25, the Census Bureau announced that the questionnaire for the 2018 End-to-End Census Test will use race and ethnicity questions from the 2010 Census instead of updated questions recommended by Census Bureau staff. This suggests that the Office of Management and Budget will not revise the official standards for collecting and reporting this data, despite recommendations from a federal agency working group to do so.On February 1, The New York Times reported that the Department of Justice was effectively closing its Office for Access to Justice, which was designed to make access to legal aid more accessible.On February 1, reports surfaced claiming Trump’s Labor Department concealed an economic analysis that found working people could lose billions of dollars in wages under its proposal to roll back an Obama-era rule – a rule that protects working people in tipped industries from having their tips taken away by their employers.On February 1, multiple sources reported that acting Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Mick Mulvaney had transferred the consumer agency’s Office of Fair Lending and Equal Opportunity from the Supervision, Enforcement, and Fair Lending division to the director’s office. The move essentially gutted the unit responsible for enforcing anti-lending discrimination laws.On February 2, the Trump administration approved a waiver allowing Indiana to require some Medicaid recipients to work.On February 12, the Trump administration released its Fiscal Year 2019 budget proposal, which would deny critical health care to those most in need simply to bankroll the president’s wall through border communities. The proposal would also eliminate the Community Relations Service – a Justice Department office established by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 – which has been a key tool that helps address discrimination, conflicts, and tensions in communities around the country.On February 12, the Trump administration released an infrastructure proposal that would reward the rich and special interests at the expense of low-income communities and communities of color and leave behind too many American communities and those most in need.On February 12, BuzzFeed News reported that the U.S. Department of Education would no longer investigate complaints filed by transgender students who have been banned from using the restrooms that correspond with their gender identity. On the same day, the department released a statement saying Trump’s budget “protects vulnerable students” – a dubious claim.On February 26, the U.S. Department of Education proposed to delay implementation of a rule that enforces the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The rule implements the IDEA’s provisions regarding significant disproportionality in the identification, placement, and discipline of students with disabilities with regard to race and ethnicity.On March 5, the Trump administration approved Arkansas’ request to require some Medicaid recipients to work.On March 5, the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education released a new Case Processing Manual (CPM) that creates greater hurdles for people filing complaints and allows dismissal of civil rights complaints based on the number of times an individual has filed.On March 5, a Department of Housing and Urban Development memo announced Secretary Ben Carson’s consideration of revising the agency’s mission statement and removing anti-discrimination language and promises of inclusive communities.On March 12, Attorney General Sessions announced the Justice Department’s ‘school safety’ plan – a plan that civil rights advocates criticized as militarizing schools, overpolicing children, and harming students, disproportionately students of color.On March 14, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy supporting H.R. 4909, the Student, Teachers, and Officers Preventing (STOP) School Violence Act, which The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights opposes.On March 23, Trump issued new orders to ban most transgender people from serving in the military – the latest iteration of a ban that he had initially announced in a series of tweets in July 2017.On March 23, Trump signed a spending bill that included the STOP School Violence Act, which civil rights organizations are concerned will exacerbate the school-to-prison pipeline crisis, further criminalize historically marginalized children, and increase the militarization of, and over-policing in, schools and communities of color.On March 26, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross announced that he had directed the Census Bureau to add an untested and unnecessary question to the 2020 Census form, which would ask the citizenship status of every person in America.On April 3, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos restored recognition of for-profit school accreditor ACICS, which the prior administration had terminated as a federal aid gatekeeper based on ACICS’s documented failures to set, monitor, or enforce standards at the schools it accredited, including the now-defunct Corinthian, ITT, and FastTrain.On April 6, Attorney General Sessions announced that he had notified all U.S. Attorney’s offices along the southwest border of a new “zero tolerance” policy toward people trying to enter the country – a policy that quickly, and inhumanely, separated hundreds of children from their families.On April 10, a federal official announced that the Department of Justice was halting the Legal Orientation Program, which offers legal assistance to immigrants.On April 10, Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to push for work requirements for low-income people in America who receive federal assistance, including Medicaid and SNAP.On April 11, the Bureau of Justice Statistics announced that it will stop asking 16- and 17-year-olds to disclose voluntarily and confidentially their gender identity and sexual orientation on the National Crime Victimization Survey.On April 17, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy supporting S.J. Res. 57, a resolution under the Congressional Review Act to repeal the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s guidance on indirect auto financing. The sole purpose of the resolution is to undermine the ability of the CFPB to enforce laws against racial and ethnic discrimination in auto lending, which is why The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights opposes it.On April 25, Secretary Ben Carson proposed changes to federal housing subsidies that could triple rent for some households and make it easier to impose work requirements.On April 26, the Trump administration announced it would terminate the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation in 12 months for approximately 9,000 Nepalese immigrants.On May 3, Trump signed an executive order creating a White House Faith and Opportunity Initiative tasked with working on “religious liberty” issues across federal agencies. The order deleted protections for beneficiaries receiving federally funded services from religious groups.On May 4, the Trump administration announced it would terminate the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation in 18 months for approximately 57,000 Honduran immigrants.On May 7, the Trump administration approved New Hampshire’s request to require some Medicaid recipients to work or participate in other “community engagement activities.”On May 11, the Federal Bureau of Prisons released changes to its Transgender Offender Manual that rolled back protections allowing transgender inmates to use facilities, including bathrooms and cell blocks, that correspond to their gender identity.On May 13, The New York Times reported that the Department of Education had “effectively killed investigations into possibly fraudulent activities at several large for-profit colleges where top hires of Betsy DeVos, the education secretary, had previously worked” by reassigning, marginalizing, or instructing its fraud investigators to focus on other matters.On May 18, the Department of Housing and Urban Development announced it would be publishing three separate notices to indefinitely suspend implementation of the 2015 Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule.On May 21, Trump signed a resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act, which repealed the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) guidance on indirect auto financing.On May 21, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy supporting S. 2155, the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, which The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights opposes.On May 22, the Trump administration issued a draft Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) designed to block access to health care under Title X and deny women information about their reproductive health care options.On May 24, Trump signed the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief and Consumer Protection Act, which will undermine one of our nation’s key civil rights laws and weaken consumer protections enacted after the 2008 financial crisis. The law rolls back more expansive Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data requirements for banks that generate fewer than 500 loans or lines of credit each year, thereby exempting 85 percent of banks and credit unions.On May 24, the Department of Education announced that it does not plan to implement rules designed to protect students in online degree programs from being taken advantage of by schools that load students up with debt but offer useless degrees, and instead plans to delay implementation of the rules and rewrite them.On June 6, Mick Mulvaney fired all 25 members of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Consumer Advisory Board.On June 8, a Department of Justice filing argued that the Affordable Care Act’s protections for people with pre-existing conditions are unconstitutional. The brief was signed by Chad Readler, a Justice Department official who Trump nominated (and Senate Republicans confirmed) to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.On June 11, Attorney General Sessions ruled that fear of domestic or gang violence was not grounds for asylum in the United States.On June 11, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director L. Francis Cissna announced the creation of a denaturalization task force in a push to strip naturalized citizens of their citizenship.On June 11, the Department of Justice announced that it would delay implementation of a permanent program for collecting information on arrest-related deaths until Fiscal Year 2020, a full five years after the Death in Custody Reporting Act was signed into law and two years after DOJ last published its near-final compliance guidelines.On June 12, the Department of Justice sued the state of Kentucky to force it to “systematically remove the names of ineligible voters from the registration records.” This voter purge lawsuit was filed one day after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Ohio’s voter purges in Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Institute.On June 18, Nikki Haley, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, announced that the United States was withdrawing from the UN Human Rights Council.On June 27, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy supporting H.R. 6139, the Border Security and Immigration Reform Act, which The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights opposes.On July 3, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos rescinded guidance from the Departments of Justice and Education that provides a roadmap to implement voluntary diversity and integration programs in higher education consistent with Supreme Court holdings on the issue.On July 10, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced cuts to navigator funding for outreach to hard-to-reach communities for the fall 2018 Affordable Care Act open enrollment period.On July 25, the Department of Education proposed new borrower defense rules, which would further exacerbate inequalities – making the already unfair and ineffective student loan servicing system even more harmful to all students, particularly to borrowers of color. The proposal would strip away student borrower rights, end key deterrents of predatory school conduct, and make it nearly impossible for students hurt by school misconduct to get loan relief.On July 26, the Trump administration failed to meet a court-ordered deadline to reunite children and families separated at the border.On July 30, Jeff Sessions announced the creation of a religious liberty task force at the Department of Justice, which many saw as a taxpayer funded effort to license discrimination against LGBTQ people and others.On August 10, the Department of Labor encouraged the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) staff to grant broad religious exemptions to federal contractors with religious-based objections to complying with Executive Order 11246, and deleted material from a prior OFCCP FAQ on sexual orientation and gender identity nondiscrimination protections that previously clarified the limited scope of allowable religious exemptions.On August 13, Secretary Ben Carson proposed changes to the Obama-era Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule, which aimed to combat segregation in housing policy.On August 15, the Federal Register published a Trump administration proposal to restrict protest rights in Washington, D.C. by closing 80 percent of the White House sidewalk, putting new limits on spontaneous demonstrations, and opening the door to charging fees for protesting.On August 29, The New York Times reported that the Department of Education is preparing rules that would “narrow the definition of sexual harassment, holding schools accountable only for formal complaints filed through proper authorities and for conduct said to have occurred on their campuses. They would also establish a higher legal standard to determine whether schools improperly addressed complaints.”On August 30, the Department of Justice filed an amicus brief opposing Harvard College’s motion for summary judgement in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. Harvard, choosing to oppose constitutionally sound strategies that colleges and universities use to expand educational opportunity for students of all backgrounds.On September 5, the Trump administration sent sweeping subpoenas to the North Carolina state elections board and 44 county elections boards requesting voter records be turned over by September 25. Two months before the midterm elections, civil rights advocates worried this effort would lead to voter suppression and intimidation.On September 6, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services announced a proposal to withdraw from the Flores Settlement Agreement. The Flores Agreement is a set of protections for underage migrant children in government custody.On September 13, the National Labor Relations Board proposed weakening the “joint-employer standard” under the National Labor Relations Act, which would make it difficult for working people to bring the companies that share control over their terms and conditions of employment to the bargaining table.On October 1, a policy change at the Department of State took effect saying that the Trump administration would no longer issue family visas to same-sex domestic partners of foreign diplomats or employees of international organizations who work in the United States.On October 10, the Department of Homeland Security’s proposed ‘public charge’ rule was published in the Federal Register. Under the rule, immigrants who apply for a green card or visa could be deemed a ‘public charge’ and turned away if they earn below 250 percent of the federal poverty line and use any of a wide range of public programs.On October 12, the Department of Justice filed a statement of interest opposing a consent decree negotiated by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan to overhaul the Chicago Police Department.On October 15, Trump vetoed a resolution, passed by both chambers of Congress, that would have terminated his declaration of a national emergency on the southern border with Mexico.On October 16, the administration released its fall 2017 Unified Agenda of Federal Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions. The document details the regulatory and deregulatory actions that federal agencies plan to make in the coming months, including harmful civil and human rights rollbacks.On October 19, the Department of Justice ended its agreement to monitor the Juvenile Court of Memphis and Shelby County and the Shelby County Detention Center in Tennessee, which addressed discrimination against Black youth, unsafe conditions, and no due process at hearings.On October 21, The New York Times reported that the Department of Health and Human Services is considering an interpretation of Title IX that “would define sex as either male or female, unchangeable, and determined by the genitals that a person is born with” – effectively erasing protections for transgender people.On October 22, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued new guidance on the Affordable Care Act’s 1332 waivers that would expand a state’s flexibility to establish insurance markets that don’t meet the requirements of the ACA.On October 24, the Department of Justice filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that federal civil rights law does not protect transgender workers from discrimination on the basis of their gender identity.On October 30, Axios reported that Trump intends to sign an executive order to end birthright citizenship. In a tweet the following day, Trump said “it will be ended one way or the other.”On October 31, the administration approved a waiver allowing Wisconsin to require Medicaid recipients to work. It was the first time a state that did not expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act was allowed to impose work requirements.On November 5, the Department of Justice filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court to circumvent three separate U.S. Courts of Appeals on litigation concerning the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.On November 7, on his last day as Attorney General, Jeff Sessions issued a memorandum to gut the Department of Justice’s use of consent decrees.On November 8, the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice announced an interim final rule to block people from claiming asylum if they enter the United States outside legal ports of entry.On November 8, the Department of Labor rolled back guidance issued by the Obama administration that clarified that tipped workers must spend at least 80 percent of their time doing tipped work in order for employers to pay them the lower tipped minimum wage.On November 16, the Department of Education issued a draft Title IX regulation that represents a cruel attempt to silence sexual assault survivors and limit their educational opportunity – and could lead schools to do even less to prevent and respond to sexual violence and harassment.On November 23, the Office of Personnel Management rescinded guidance that helped federal agency managers understand how to support transgender federal workers and respect their rights (initially issued in 2011 and updates several times since), replacing it with vaguely worded guidance hostile to transgender working people.On December 11, Trump declared that he would be “proud to shut down the government” – which he did. It resulted in the longest government shutdown in U.S. history (35 days), which harmed federal workers, contractors, their families, and the communities that depend on them.On December 14, BuzzFeed News reported that the Department of Housing and Urban Development was quietly advising lenders to deny DACA recipients Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loans.On December 18, the Trump administration’s School Safety Commission recommended rescinding Obama-era school discipline guidance, which was intended to assist states, districts, and schools in developing practices and policies to enhance school climate and comply with federal civil rights laws.On December 21, following the recommendation of Trump’s School Safety Commission, the Departments of Justice and Education rescinded the Dear Colleague Letter on the Nondiscriminatory Administration of School Discipline. Both departments jointly issued the guidance in January 2014.2019On January 3, The Washington Post reported that the Trump administration is considering rolling back disparate impact regulations that provide anti-discrimination protections to people of color, women, and others.On January 4, The Guardian reported that the Trump administration has stopped cooperating with and responding to UN investigators over potential human rights violations in the United States.On January 23, the Department of Health and Human Services granted a waiver to South Carolina to allow state-licensed child welfare agencies to discriminate in accordance with religious beliefs.On January 25, the Department of Homeland Security began implementing the Migrant Protection Protocols – also known as the Remain in Mexico policy – which forces Central Americans seeking asylum to return to Mexico, for an indefinite amount of time, while their claims are processed.On January 29, the Department of Justice reversed its position in a Texas voting rights case, saying the state should not need to have its voting changes pre-cleared with the federal government. Career voting rights lawyers at the department declined to sign the brief.On February 6, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) – under the direction of Trump-appointed Director Kathy Kraninger – released its plan to roll back the central protections of the agency’s 2017 payday and car-title lending rule.On February 15, Trump announced that he would declare a national emergency on the southern border – an attempt to end-run the Congress in order to build a harmful and wasteful border wall.On February 22, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a final rule to significantly undermine the Title X family planning program’s ability to properly serve its patients and to provide its hallmark quality care. The rule’s provisions will have far-reaching implications for all Title X-funded programs, the services provided, and the ability of patients to seek and receive high-quality, confidential family planning and preventive health care services.On February 25, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy opposing H.R. 8, the Bipartisan Background Checks Act, which The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights supports.On February 26, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy opposing H.J. Res. 46, a resolution terminating the national emergency on the southern border declared by President Trump, which The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights supports. On September 25, the White House issued a statement opposing the Senate’s companion resolution.On March 5, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy opposing H.R. 1, the For the People Act, which The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights supports.On March 7, the Department of Labor issued a proposed revision to the overtime rule, which proposes to raise the salary threshold to an amount ($35,308) far lower than the Obama Labor Department’s previously finalized rule ($47,476).On March 11, the Trump administration released its FY 2020 budget proposal, which requested $8.6 billion for a southern border wall, requested an inexplicably and irresponsibly low figure for 2020 Census operations, and proposed deeply troubling cuts to the social safety net – including cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, and SNAP.On March 12, the Department of Defense issued guidance for enacting the transgender military ban to begin in 30 days.On March 25, the Trump administration said in an appeals court filing that the entire Affordable Care Act should be struck down.On April 11, the Trump administration ordered all federal agencies to put important policy decisions on hold until they have been reviewed by the White House, making it take even longer for independent regulators to respond to problems like risky lending practices.On April 12, Politico reported that the Trump administration will not nominate (or renominate) anyone to the 18-member U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.On April 17, the Department of Housing and Urban Development proposed a rule (eventually published on May 10) seeking to restrict housing assistance for families with mixed-citizenship status. The agency’s own analysis showed that the proposal could lead to 55,000 children becoming temporarily homeless.On April 19, the Department of Health and Human Services published a proposal to reverse an Obama-era rule that required the data collection of the sexual orientation and gender identity of youth in foster care, along with their foster parents, adoptive parents, or legal guardians.On May 2, the Department of Health and Human Services announced a final rule to allow health workers to cite religious or moral objections to deny care to patients, which will substantially harm the health and well-being of many people in America – particularly women and transgender patients.On May 6, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) published a final rule targeting home care workers – who are mostly women of color – designed to stop them from paying union dues and benefits through payroll deduction.On May 6, the Office of Management and Budget proposed regulatory changes that could result in cuts in federal aid to millions of low-income Americans by changing how inflation is used to calculate the definition of poverty.On May 20, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy opposing H.R. 1500, the Consumers First Act, which The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights supports.On May 22, the Department of Housing and Urban Development proposed changing the Obama-era Equal Access Rule to allow homeless shelters to deny access based on a person’s gender identity.On May 24, the Department of Health and Human Services announced a proposed rule to weaken the non-discrimination protections (Section 1557) of the Affordable Care Act. The rule, if implemented, would harm millions of people in America by allowing health care providers to deny care to marginalized communities and worsen already existing health disparities.On June 3, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy opposing H.R. 6, the American Dream and Promise Act, which The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights supports.On June 6, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued a final rule that delayed the compliance date for the agency’s 2017 payday and car-title lending rule.On June 10, acting Secretary of Homeland Security Kevin McAleenan announced that immigration hardliner Ken Cuccinelli was the new acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Five months later, the new acting Secretary of Homeland Security, Chad Wolf, named Cuccinelli to be the Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security. A federal judge and the Government Accountability Office, respectively, said that Cuccinelli’s appointments were illegal.On June 12, Trump asserted executive privilege to block congressional access to documents related to the addition of an untested citizenship question to the 2020 Census.On June 21, it was reported that Trump had directed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to conduct a mass roundup of migrant families. The following day, the president announced that the raids were delayed, but has continued to threaten them.On July 1, the Department of Education rescinded the “gainful employment” rule that identified higher education programs that routinely left students with unaffordable debt. The rule had been designed to ensure that students who needed to borrow loans were able to reap the benefit of their investment in education.On July 3, the Department of Housing and Urban Development removed requirements that applicants for homelessness funding maintain anti-discrimination policies and demonstrate efforts to serve LGBT people and their families, which had been included in Notices of Funding Availability for several prior years.On July 8, the State Department created the Commission on Unalienable Rights aimed at providing review of the role of human rights in American foreign policy. Seven of the appointees to commission have disturbing anti-LGBT records.On July 15, the administration moved to end asylum protections for most Central American migrants – deeming anyone who passes through another country ineligible for asylum at the U.S. southern border.On July 15, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy opposing H.R. 582, the Raise The Wage Act, which The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights supports.On July 23, the Trump administration published a notice in the Federal Register that expands expedited removals to a wider range of undocumented immigrants. The move threatens same-day deportation for anyone who cannot immediately show they have been in the United States continuously for two years without a hearing, oversight, review, or appeal. It also threatens to trigger massive racial profiling and roundups for immigrants and citizens in the United States.On July 23, the Trump administration proposed a rule that could cut more than 3 million people from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) – or food stamps – after Congress blocked similar efforts in 2018.On July 25, Attorney General William Barr announced that the federal government will reverse a nearly two-decade moratorium to resume the federal death penalty.On July 31, Bloomberg Law reported that the Department of Housing and Urban Development plans to issue a proposed rule to amend the agency’s “disparate impact” regulations that provide anti-discrimination protections to people of color, women, and others. If enacted, millions of people in America would be more vulnerable to housing discrimination – with fewer tools to challenge it. The proposal was officially published in the Federal Register on August 19.On August 7, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raided seven food processing plants in Mississippi and arrested 680 undocumented immigrants – representing the largest workplace raid in more than a decade. The raids – part of this administration’s dangerous, anti-immigrant agenda – left some children parentless and locked out of their homes after school.On August 12, the administration announced its final “public charge” rule, which makes it more difficult for immigrants who come to the United States legally to stay as permanent residents if they have used (or are viewed as likely to use) public benefits.On August 13, Bloomberg Law reported that the Department of Justice is urging the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to change its position and urge the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that businesses can discriminate against LGBTQ workers.On August 15, the Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) unveiled a proposal that would allow government contractors to fire LGBTQ employees, or workers who are pregnant and unmarried, based on the employers’ religious views.On August 16, the Department of Justice filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not prohibit discrimination against transgender people. Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions previously reversed an Obama-era DOJ policy which clarified that transgender workers are protected from discrimination under Title VII.On August 16, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services sent letters, first reported in the Boston area, stating that the agency will no longer consider most deferrals of deportation for people with a serious medical condition – asking people in extreme medical need to leave the country within 33 days.On August 19, the Department of Justice filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that the Trump administration acted lawfully when it rescinded the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program in September 2017.On August 21, acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan announced that the administration was moving forward with new rules aimed at ending the decades-old Flores settlement agreement that ensures constitutional protections for children in immigrant detention facilities. Without the protections of Flores, the government can hold immigrant children indefinitely, and in prison-like conditions, with no hope for a timely release and no mandate for appropriate care of traumatized children.On August 23, the Department of Justice filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not prohibit discrimination against gay, lesbian, and bisexual people.On August 23, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Attorney General Barr promoted six judges to the Board of Immigration Appeals, which sets binding policy for deportation cases. All six of the judges have high rates of denying immigrants’ asylum claims, and four of them fill seats that the Trump administration created in 2018.On August 28, the Trump administration announced that some children born to U.S. military members and government employees working overseas wouldn’t automatically be considered U.S. citizens.On August 30, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announced final new “borrower defense” regulations that rolled back protections for student borrowers against predatory recruiting and other school misconduct put in place in 2016.On September 3, the Trump administration announced that it would divert $3.6 billion of funding for military construction projects to fund the president’s harmful and wasteful wall along the southern border.On September 11, multiple reports confirmed that the Trump administration would not grant Temporary Protected Status (TPS) to Bahamians impacted by Hurricane Dorian. The denial of protected status follows the Trump administration’s termination of the TPS designation for several other countries.On September 17, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy opposing H.R. 1423, the Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal (FAIR) Act, which The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights supports.On September 19, the Department of Education proposed removing gender-based harassment – including harassment based on gender identity, gender expression, and nonconformity with gender stereotypes – from the Civil Rights Data Collection’s definition of harassment or bullying on the basis of sex.On September 23, acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan announced that the administration would soon end a federal immigration policy (commonly referred to as “catch and release”) that allows migrant families seeking asylum in the United States to remain in this country while their asylum applications are pending.On September 24, the Department of Labor released its final overtime rule, which raises the salary threshold to an amount far lower than the Obama Labor Department’s previously finalized rule.On September 27, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division filed a statement of interest in defense of a Roman Catholic archbishop’s decision that led to the firing of a gay, married teacher – yet another move by the Trump administration to use religion as a shield against core anti-discrimination principles that protect LGBTQ people.On October 1, the Department of Agriculture unveiled a new proposal to take away some state flexibility in setting benefit levels under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) – the administration’s third attempt in the past year to kick people off food stamps.On October 4, Trump signed a proclamation to deny visas to legal immigrants who are unable to prove they will have health care coverage or the ability to pay for it within 30 days of their arrival to the United States.On October 7, the Department of Labor released a proposed tip rule that would eliminate the “80/20 rule,” which says that when a tipped worker is assigned non-tip-generating ‘side work’ that takes up more than 20 percent of their time, the employer can’t take the tip credit and must instead pay the worker the full minimum wage.On October 22, a Department of Justice proposal published in the Federal Register proposed to begin collecting DNA samples from immigrants crossing the border, creating an enormous database of asylum-seekers and other migrants.On October 23, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy opposing H.R. 4617, the Stopping Harmful Interference in Elections for a Lasting Democracy (SHIELD) Act, which The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights supports.On October 25, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced a new policy to narrow who can qualify for waivers of fees associated with applications for green cards, U.S. citizenship, work permits, and other benefits.On October 25, Attorney General William Barr issued two decisions, made through his certification power, that will limit immigrants’ options to fight deportation.On November 1, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a rule to undo requirements that its grantees ensure that federal taxpayer dollars are not used to fund discrimination.On November 1, the Department of Education issued a final regulation permitting religious colleges and universities to ignore nondiscrimination standards set by accrediting agencies.On November 18, the Social Security Administration published in the Federal Register a proposal to slash Social Security disability benefits – which could cut benefits for up to 2.6 million people with disabilities.On December 3, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy opposing H.R. 4, the Voting Rights Advancement Act, which The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights supports.On December 10, the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission (EEOC) revealed a proposed rule that would prohibit the use of official time by union representatives to assist in federal workplace anti-discrimination claims.On December 11, memos obtained by NPR revealed that Secretary Betsy DeVos overruled career staff in the Department of Education’s Borrower Defense Unit, who recommended to the department’s political leadership that defrauded student borrowers deserve no less than full relief from their student debts (the secretary instead provided only partial or no relief to most such borrowers).On December 12, the Trump administration approved a waiver allowing South Carolina to require most Medicaid recipients to work.On December 18, Attorney General William Barr announced the launch of Operation Relentless Pursuit, which was projected to funnel $71 million to law enforcement in seven cities – Albuquerque, Baltimore, Cleveland, Detroit, Kansas City, Memphis, and Milwaukee – under the guise of combating violent crime. Operation Relentless Pursuit replicates the most devastating aspects of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which flooded America’s streets with cops and dramatically increased incarceration rates, especially in Black and Brown communities.On December 27, HuffPost reported that the Department of the Interior removed “sexual orientation” from a statement in the agency’s ethics guide regarding workplace discrimination.On December 30, the Department of Labor announced a proposed rule setting out new standards for when the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs could issue predetermination notices for preliminary findings of discrimination. The rule would make it more difficult to identify and remedy potential discrimination in federal contractor and subcontractor workplaces, negatively impacting the right of federal contract workers to be free from unlawful employment discrimination.2020On January 3, the Trump administration filed a brief in June Medical Services v. Gee, urging the Court to allow a Louisiana abortion access law to go into effect. The civil rights community filed briefs urging the Court to strike down the restrictive law, highlighting the law’s impact on Black women.On January 7, the Department of Housing and Urban Development issued a proposal that would gut the agency’s 2015 Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule. HUD’s proposal would leave people of color, women, and other protected communities already harmed by unfair and unequal housing policies at a further disadvantage.On January 13, The Washington Post reported that the Trump administration would divert $7.2 billion of funding from the Pentagon to fund the president’s harmful and wasteful wall along the southern border.On January 13 (and subsequently on February 11 for the Senate companion resolution), the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy opposing H.J. Res 76, a resolution under the Congressional Review Act to overturn Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’s borrower defense rule. The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights supports this resolution.On January 13, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy opposing H.R. 1230, the Protecting Older Workers Against Discrimination Act, which The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights supports.On January 16, nine federal agencies issued proposed rules eliminating the rights of people receiving help from federal programs to (i) request a referral if they have a concern or problem with a faith-based provider and (ii) receive written notice of their rights. The changes would encourage agencies to claim broader religious exemptions to deny help to certain people while receiving federal funds.On January 23, the Department of State announced a new regulation aimed at denying pregnant people visas to prevent them from traveling to the United States. The regulation represents an attack against pregnant people living in countries without access to the Visa Waiver Program and immigrant women, particularly those of color, and with low incomes.On January 30, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released block grant guidance to allow states to cap Medicaid spending – essentially putting forward the notion that we should ration health care for the most vulnerable people in our nation.On January 31, the Trump administration announced an expansion of its Muslim ban, which will expand restrictions on additional countries including Myanmar (also known as Burma), Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, Sudan, and Tanzania.On February 5, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy opposing H.R. 2474, the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights supports.On February 10, the Trump administration released its Fiscal Year 2021 budget proposal, which included $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and the ACA over 10 years, cuts to SNAP by $182 billion over 10 years, cuts assistance for some people with disabilities through Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income, and reduces the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program by $21 billion over 10 years, among other drastic cuts.On February 13, the Department of Housing and Urban Development proposed to amend the Equal Participation of Faith-Based Organizations rule that removes safeguards to prevent discrimination.On February 14, the Trump administration announced the deployment of law enforcement tactical units from the southern border as part of an arrest operation in sanctuary cities across the country. This includes the deployment of members of the elite tactical unit known as BORTAC, which acts as a Border Patrol SWAT team.On February 20, the White House published a memo (dated January 29) signed by Trump that granted Secretary of Defense Mark Esper the authority to ignore the collective bargaining rights of civilian employees working for the Department of Defense.On February 25, the Department of Justice sided with the plaintiff, Students for Fair Admissions, to oppose race-based affirmative action at Harvard University in a friend-of-the-court brief filed in the First Circuit Court of Appeals.On February 26, the Department of Homeland Security expanded two pilot programs, the Humanitarian Asylum Review Process (HARP) for Mexican nationals and Prompt Asylum Claim Review (PACR), that fast-track the asylum process for migrants at the U.S. border. The American Civil Liberties Union argues that both programs deny asylum seekers due process since it is nearly impossible for the migrants to access legal help.On February 26, the Department of Justice created a Denaturalization Section in its immigration office to prioritize stripping citizenship rights from naturalized immigrants who commit certain crimes.On February 27, the Department of Justice filed a statement of interest in support of a Kentucky wedding photographer who is challenging a city ordinance banning businesses from discriminating against gay customers. The photographer, Chelsey Nelson, refused to photograph same-sex weddings due to her religious beliefs.On February 28, the Department of Justice proposed regulations increasing fees for immigrants and requiring asylum seekers to pay a $50 fee to have their cases heard in court. Fees for permanent residence permits would increase by $990, to a total of $2,750, and the cost for naturalization of new citizens would increase by $445, to $1,170.On March 6, the Department of Justice issued a rule saying that DNA data samples from migrants taken into federal custody after trying to cross the U.S. border can be stored and shared among federal agencies.On March 10, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy opposing H.R. 2486, the National Origin-Based Antidiscrimination for Nonimmigrants (NO BAN) Act, which The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights supports.On March 17, the Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs announced a decision to temporarily exempt and waive certain affirmative action requirements connected to federal contracts for coronavirus relief.On March 20, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention imposed a 30-day restriction on all nonessential travel into the United States from Mexico and Canada – an effort, led by Stephen Miller, to use public health laws to reduce immigration.On March 24, Attorney General William Barr signed a statement of interest arguing against the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference’s transgender athlete policy, which allows athletes to compete as the gender with which they identify.On April 20, the Trump administration extended its March 2020 CDC rule on border restrictions until May 20, 2020.On April 22, Trump signed an executive order to temporarily ban the issuance of green cards to people seeking permanent residency in the United States – a move that was viewed as a shameless manipulation of the pandemic to justify the administration’s xenophobic policies.On April 30, the Department of Education issued guidance, flouting congressional intent under the CARES Act, that directs school districts to share millions of dollars designated for low-income students with wealthy private schools.On May 6, the Department of Education released its final rule on Title IX that raises the bar of proof for sexual misconduct, bolsters the rights of those accused, and introduces new protections that include sexual harassment. If the rule takes effect, it will silence sexual assault survivors and limit their educational opportunity.On May 12, the Department of Agriculture appealed an injunction that blocked the agency from proceeding with cuts to the SNAP program (food stamps). The new requirements, if the USDA wins its appeals, would strip 688,000 Americans of their food benefits.On May 12, the Department of Health and Human Services eliminated sexual orientation and gender identity and tribal data collection in the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS, which collects case-level information on all children in foster care and those who have been adopted with title IV-E agency involvement).On May 14, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy opposing H.R. 6800, the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions (HEROES) Act, which The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights supports.On May 15, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights sent a letter of impending enforcement action to the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference and six school districts declaring that Title IX requires schools to ban transgender students from competing in school sports based on their gender identity and threatening to withhold funding from Connecticut schools if they do not comply.On May 19, the Trump administration announced the indefinite extension of its CDC order that allows federal authorities at the border to immediately return migrants to their home countries.On May 26, the Department of Justice filed a statement of interest in an Alabama federal court in support of the state’s onerous absentee ballot requirements that put Black voters and voters with disabilities at risk during the COVID-19 pandemic.On May 29, Trump vetoed a bipartisan resolution to overturn a Department of Education rule and hold Secretary DeVos accountable for failing to provide relief to students defrauded by for-profit colleges.On May 29, Trump issued a presidential proclamation aimed at restricting the entry of graduate students and researchers from China.On June 1, police officers and the National Guard dispersed peaceful protesters outside the White House using teargas and flash-bang explosions so that Trump could pose for photos, while holding up a Bible, in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church.On June 3, the Department of Justice filed a brief in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to allow religious-affiliated adoption agencies to refuse child placement into LGBTQ homes. The Justice Department is not a party to the case.On June 12, the Department of Health and Human Services issued its final rule rolling back the non-discrimination protections (Section 1557) of the Affordable Care Act. The rule will promote discrimination in medical care.On June 14, The Washington Post reported that the Department of Housing and Urban Development will propose a rule that would roll back Obama-era guidance requiring single-sex homeless shelters to accept transgender people.On June 15, a 161-page regulation from the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice was published in the Federal Register that would make it exceedingly difficult for migrants to claim asylum in the United States.On June 19, the Department of Justice filed a statement of interest arguing that the Equal Protection Clause permits Idaho’s Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, which bars trans girls and women from school sports teams.On June 22, Trump issued a proclamation to expand and extend his April 22 order that suspends some immigration from outside the United States. The new proclamation extends the initial green card ban in the April proclamation until December 31, 2020, and includes additional significant restrictions on several categories of temporary guest worker visas.On June 24, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy opposing H.R. 51, the Washington, D.C. Admission Act, which The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights supports.On June 24, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy opposing H.R. 7120, the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights supports.On June 24, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy supporting H.R. 3985, the Just and Unifying Solutions To Invigorate Communities Everywhere (JUSTICE) Act, which The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights opposes.On June 25, the Trump administration filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that the entire Affordable Care Act should be invalidated – saying “the remainder of the ACA should not be allowed to remain in effect.” The brief was filed in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.On July 7, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau issued its final rule on payday and car-title lending – undoing consumer protections and threatening to devastate communities of color that are already facing the worst fallout of the pandemic.On July 7, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights issued a notice in the Federal Register proposing changes to the Civil Rights Data Collection, including removal of several questions regarding school and district characteristics, discipline, school finance and data disaggregation.On July 8, the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice issued a proposed rule that would bar asylum seekers from countries with disease outbreaks. The proposal does not say whether it would only apply during a global pandemic, but instead would depend on determinations made by the Attorney General and Homeland Security secretary in consultation with the Department of Health and Human Services.On July 14, the Department of Justice filed a brief asking the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate Medicaid work requirements in Arkansas after a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit unanimously upheld a lower court ruling that blocked the work requirements.On July 14, the federal government carried out its first execution in more than 17 years and has since carried out four additional executions during Trump’s presidency.On July 15, the Trump administration finalized a rule proposed by the White House Council on Environmental Quality to change how the federal government implements the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). NEPA is the federal law, signed by President Nixon in 1970, that safeguards air, water, and land by requiring environmental assessments of major infrastructure projects. The Trump administration’s rule limits the number of projects that require in-depth environmental review and no longer requires federal agencies to weigh a project’s vulnerability to climate change or impact on global warming.On July 16, the Commission on Unalienable Rights (the formation of which was announced in July 2019 by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo) released a draft report to the public. Experts described the report as undermining decades of human rights progress.On July 21, Trump signed a memorandum attempting to ban undocumented immigrants from counting toward congressional apportionment following the 2020 Census.On July 23, Secretary Carson terminated the Obama-era Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule, replacing it with a new rule called “Preserving Community and Neighborhood Choice.” AFFH aimed to combat segregation in housing policy.On July 28, acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf issued a memorandum to drastically curtail the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program while the agency decides whether to rescind the program completely. The memo is in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in June 2020 that found the administration violated the Administrative Procedure Act when it rescinded the program in September 2017.On July 30, NPR reported that the U.S. Census Bureau would be cutting census door-knocking a month short. On August 3, the bureau released a statement confirming that both field data collection and self-response would be ending a month early on September 30.On August 6, Trump appointed J. Christian Adams to serve on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR) and was sworn in one week later. Adams, who was a member of the president’s sham voter suppression commission, was appointed to the USCCR on the 55th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act.On August 8, Trump signed a series of politically motivated executive actions amid the coronavirus pandemic. One of the memos he signed defers payroll taxes from September through December 2020. Trump also said that, if reelected, he would permanently terminate the payroll tax. In a letter to Senate Democrats on August 24, Stephen Goss, chief actuary of the Social Security Administration, said that such a move would deplete Social Security by mid-2023.On August 18, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) signaled its intent to create burdensome new rules for its conciliation process that could tip the scales in favor of employers and potentially expose workers who file workplace discrimination claims, as well as potential witnesses, to retaliation.On August 19, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) released an updated draft policy on gender and women’s empowerment that eliminated any reference to transgender people or contraceptives.On August 21, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy opposing H.R. 8015, the Delivering for America Act, which The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights supports.On August 26, Eric Dreiband, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, sent letters to the governors of Pennsylvania, Michigan, New Jersey, and New York (all Democrats) requesting information under the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA) about the coronavirus response of public nursing homes in their states. The move, which occurred during the Republican National Convention, was viewed as a political move targeting Democrats to distract from the president’s failed response to the pandemic.On August 26, the Department of Education issued a “Dear Educators and Stakeholders Letter” announcing the withdrawal of eight guidance documents, including in its rationale that previous support the department expressed for diversity was advocating for “policy preferences and positions beyond the requirements of the Constitution and Title VI.”On August 31, the Department of Education issued a notice in the Federal Register that it had rescinded almost 100 guidance documents issued since the 1990s.On September 2, Trump sent a memorandum to the attorney general and the director of the Office of Management and Budget that threatened to pull federal funding from “anarchist jurisdictions” – cities “that are permitting anarchy, violence and destruction.” This was also viewed as a political move targeting cities where people are protesting police brutality and systemic racism.On September 3, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued an opinion letter abandoning its long-standing interpretation of Section 707 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.On September 4, the Department of Housing and Urban Development issued a final rule that severely weakens the disparate impact tool under the Fair Housing Act, which will make millions of people more vulnerable to housing discrimination.On September 4, Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, sent a memo to the heads of executive departments and agencies instructing them to end anti-racist trainings that address white privilege and critical race theory – caalling them “divisive, anti-American propaganda.”On September 8, the Department of Justice filed a brief in support of an Indiana Catholic school that was sued for firing a teacher in a same-sex marriage.On September 8, a whistleblower complaint from a Department of Homeland Security official alleged that top DHS officials, including Chad Wolf and Ken Cuccinelli, directed analysts to downplay threats from violent white supremacy and Russian election interference.On September 17, the AP reported that the Department of Education is threatening to withhold some federal funding from Connecticut school districts if they follow a state policy that allows transgender girls to compete as girls in high school sports.On September 22, Trump issued an executive order prohibiting federal agencies, federal contractors, and grantees from engaging in anti-discrimination workplace diversity trainings the Administration deemed “divisive.”On September 22, the Department of Labor proposed a rule that would make it easier for employers to misclassify workers and deny them minimum wage and overtime protections.On September 24, the Department of Housing and Urban Development issued its final rule to gut the disparate impact tool under the Fair Housing Act, which will make it harder to challenge systemic racism by housing providers, financial institutions, and insurance companies that deprive people of the services and opportunities they need.On September 30, the State Department told Congress that it would allow only 15,000 refugees to resettle in the United States in the 2021 fiscal year, which began the following day.On October 1, the White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy opposing H.R. 8406, the HEROES Act, which The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights supports.On October 6, Microsoft revealed that the Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) contacted the company over its commitments to increasing diversity. According to Microsoft, “the OFCCP has focused on whether Microsoft’s commitment to double the number of Black and African American people managers, senior individual contributors and senior leaders in our U.S. workforce by 2025 could constitute unlawful discrimination on the basis of race, which would violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.” The OFCCP contacted Wells Fargo for the same reason.On October 7, the Trump administration filed an emergency application with the U.S. Supreme Court in an attempt to halt the 2020 Census count early. The application was filed after the Ninth Circuit upheld a district court’s ruling that the administration could not stop the count at the end of September.On October 8, a Justice Department memo suspended all diversity and inclusion training for the department’s employees and managers in compliance with Trump’s recent executive order banning anti-bias trainings.On October 21, Trump signed an executive order that could expand his ability to hire and fire tens of thousands of federal employees. The order would allow federal agencies to reclassify certain workers, which would strip them of job protections. The national president of the American Federation of Government Employees referred to the order as “the most profound undermining of the civil service in our lifetimes.”On November 1, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the Department of the Treasury approved Georgia’s waiver request under Section 1332 of the Affordable Care Act, which allows the state to exit the federal marketplace without creating a state-based marketplace to replace it. This will endanger coverage and access to care for tens of thousands of people.On November 2, Trump signed an executive order establishing the President’s Advisory 1776 Commission to “promote patriotic education.” The commission, teased by Trump in remarks on September 17, was viewed as a political move aimed at censoring the teaching of American history and as an attack on The New York Times’ Pulitzer-Prize winning 1619 Project, which details this nation’s history beginning when the first enslaved Africans were brought to America.On November 9, in a memo to U.S. attorneys, Attorney General William Barr authorized the opening of election fraud investigations “if there are clear and apparently-credible allegations of irregularities that, if true, could potentially impact the outcome of a federal election in an individual State.” The memo, for which there was no factual basis, was viewed as an attempt to sow chaos and led to the resignation of Richard Pilger, director of the DOJ Criminal Division’s Election Crimes branch.

This answer has gotten entirely out of hand. Either more was going on at 21 than I initially thought. Or I don’t know how to shut up. It is broken up into neat blocks. If aren’t interested in one thing; just scroll down to another.So, let’s start at the beginning . . . .AGE 21 . . . August 19, 1970: Vietnam was the big thing that overshadowed everything. I was in college, so that would have covered my ass were it necessary. But my draft number was 311 and I also had chronic severe asthma. So I was covered three ways from Sunday and didn’t have to sweat it like many did.RIP. . . 17 soldiers from the general St. Cloud area were killed in Vietnam and are memorialized on a wide granite stele in the city park next to our lake. The ages and death dates inscribed thereon tell me 8 of them were close enough in age for me to have passed them in the hallways of my high school when we were all there, 1965–1967. I knew 3 by name—George Gillespie, Ron Panno, Danny Zutter. None were personal friends. RIP.This memorial is set in amongst lilac bushes. I have always, even before the above, associated the smell of lilacs with funerals. Not my favorite flower.There is a story which I can’t nail down as tight as I’d like: 10 or 40 (I’ve heard both) of my classmates volunteered for Vietnam en masse shortly after graduation: June 1967. I think the army had some kind of enlistee recruiting gimmick at that time; whereby, if friends enlisted together, they went through basic training together. I don’t know about deployment. Those above named three soldiers were among that group. I also knew two others who were part of that group who managed to come back in one piece. Most of the men I was in classes with were not not, um, militarily inclined.Another Vietnam story involves the stated intention to douse a dog in gasoline on the steps of the historic Stearns County courthouse here in St. Cloud (a majestic, pristine, 1922 brick and granite building raised up on a ten-foot pedestal and capped with a golden terra cotta tiled dome that is all by itself 109 feet tall and 46 feet in diameter.) And then light that dog on fire to protest the immolation of the Vietnamese by napalm.But this was Yippie-style punking (-ie, not -ee ; politically active hippies.) The student protesters showed up with the dog and a gas can; and so did the ASPCA; and the police; newspapers; television stations. The dog was not set on fire. The point was, “Look at how upset you get about burning a dog alive. But there are hundreds of Vietnamese getting torched, melted, tortured, mutilated, and scarred for life by napalm every day; not just one lousy dog.”I only found out about this piece of street theater a couple of years after the fact—I was away at college when it all went down.Meanwhile, I was arrested May, 1971 (age 21 and 9 months), along with ten other college friends for blocking the entrance to the Federal Building in downtown Minneapolis. There was a draftee induction scheduled for that day. It would have been better if we had chained ourselves to the door; but we weren’t thinking that far ahead. I depressed the valve on a government car and let most of the air out of one of its tires. A passer-by yelled at me and I desisted. I believe we were fined only court costs, $25. Our lawyer was pro bono. One of my co-conspirators, Randy, become a lawyer and then a judge.We made the next day’s paper. Big whoop. notSomewhere in the bowels of the FBI records division, there may still exist a grainy, home movie quality film—originally shown at our pro forma trial—of me lighting Tracie Dalton’s cigarette Bogart-style and handing it to her back over my shoulder. She says she doesn’t remember that gesture; but it’s true. We joked with the arresting officers as they perp-walked us, handcuffed, to our arraignment about how this whole thing was cutting into the time we usually reserved for our daily, mid-afternoon, co-ed softball game. We invited them to get a team together and play softball against us, They declined. One of them laughed that he didn’t want to get close to us if we had baseball bats in our hands. We agreed to agree; a good time was had by all.The war continued on regardless. And without us.My father was, at that time, the commander of VFW Post #428.# # # # #During the years up to and around turning 21, I spent a lot of time with my college cohort hanging out and having deep discussions about Metaphysics/Ontology—the branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things, including abstract concepts such as being, knowing, substance, cause, identity, time, and space; and the nature of concepts like being, existence, and reality. These impassioned discussions and abstract theories and talks with no basis in reality would also have been colloquially known as college-life bull sessions. Looking back at it now, a different S-word could fairly be substituted.Below is a raft of dates and events. Strictly speaking most of these events predate me reaching 21; but really they are all of a piece and can’t be so neatly parsed out. 21 years old for me means the years 1967–1972.Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr. was born January 14, 1942. At 1960 Olympics, he won the gold medal in the Light Heavyweight division. Feb. 25, 1964, in one of the most stunning upsets in sports history, Clay knocked out Sonny Liston and became Heavyweight champion of the world. Feb. 27, 1964, he shocked the world again by announcing that he had accepted the teachings of a black separatist religion known as the Nation of Islam. March 6, 1964, he took the name Muhammad Ali, which was given to him by his spiritual mentor, Elijah Muhammad. For the next three years, Muhammad Ali totally dominated the boxing world. [ESPN.com] April 28, 1967, Mohammad Ali refused to be inducted into the armed forces saying, “I ain’t got no quarrel with those Vietcong.” June 20, 1967, Muhammad Ali was convicted of draft evasion; sentenced to five years in prison; fined $10,000; and banned from boxing for three years. He stayed out of prison while his case was appealed. Returning to the ring on October 26, 1970, he knocked out Jerry Quarry in Atlanta in the third round. March 8, 1971, Muhammad Ali lost to Joe Frazier after 15 rounds; the first loss of his professional boxing career. June 28, 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned his conviction for evading the draft. He retired from boxing at age 39 in 1981. In 1984, Muhammad Ali was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. He died June 3, 2016. By the time he died, Muhammad Ali was the best known individual in the world; his closest competition was Micky Mouse and Coca Cola.It’s hard to explain what a big deal this was when he refused to serve in the army; but he was a hero to both the African American community and to anti-war protesters and the counterculture alike.My father was a big boxing fan. He was not at all happy with Muhammad Ali right from the start, calling him a showboat and a braggart. That bobbing and weaving he did with both hands down at waist height really sent him up the wall. Dad didn’t dispute Ali’s superb boxing skills; he just didn't like him and would have been perfectly happy had he never returned to the ring.Mohammad Ali wasn’t the only African-American that changed his name in deference to his heritage or religion: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar , born Ferdinand Lewis Alcindor in 4/16/1947, changed his name in 1971. When he ”. . . left the game in 1989 at age 42, no NBA player had ever scored more points, blocked more shots, won more Most Valuable Player Awards, played in more All-Star Games or logged more seasons. His list of personal and team accomplishments is perhaps the most awesome in league history . . . no player has ever duplicated his trademark sky-hook.” [NBA]I can’t prove Ali and Kareem were the start of the trend; name changing and birth names reflecting African and Islamic heritage are pretty common now. But I'll give to them anyway because they were among the most visible.Alex Haley did research for Roots around 1969. He was on some kind of fellowship where he lived and worked on his book at Mac; but he did not teach. I only found out about this after the ground-breaking four-part mini-series was on TV in 1977.Missing from this is a ton more stuff about civil rights and the rise of the Black Power Movement and the Black Panthers (founded by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton in October 1966) and voting rights that got its start in the 1950s and extended into the late 1960s , through the 1970s and that continues today. I can’t cover all that here. My apologies; but covering the flow and evolution of civil rights is simply too much and as a white guy I might not even be the right person to try it.# # # # #The my lai massacre facts, March 16, 1968, happened two years and five months before achieving my majority. Martin Luther King was assassinated April 4, 1968. Robert Kennedy was murdered June 5, 1968. On August 20, 1968, the USSR led Warsaw Pact troops in an invasion of Czechoslovakia to crack down on the reformist trends started by The Prague Spring. This action successfully halted the pace of reform in Czechoslovakia, but it had unintended consequences for the unity of the communist bloc. [History]“The police assault in front of the Hilton Hotel in Chicago on the evening of August 28, 1968 (age 19), became the most famous image of the Chicago demonstrations of 1968. The entire event took place live under television lights for seventeen minutes with the crowd chanting, "The whole world is watching." [WIKI] I was working my summer job at a moving company, between college years, and didn’t know about it until my boss mentioned it the next day.Neil Armstrong walked on the moon July 20, 1969 (age 20). Missed that one too; working.Sept 23, 1969, in Federal Court in Chicago, the Chicago Eight Trial of the eight antiwar activist leaders charged with responsibility for the violent demonstrations at the August 25–29, 1968 Democratic National Convention, began . The defendants were charged with conspiracy to cross state lines with the intent to incite a riot. The trial was presided over by the far from impartial Judge Julius Hoffman. Aided and abetted by Judge Hoffman, the trial quickly turned into a circus as the defendants and their attorneys used the court as a platform to attack Nixon, the Vietnam war, racism, and oppression. When the trial ended five months later, February 18, 1970, Hoffman found the eight defendants and their attorneys guilty of 175 counts of contempt of court and sentenced them to terms of between two to four years. Although the jury declared the defendants not guilty of conspiracy; the jury found six of them guilty of intent to riot and they were each sentenced to five years and fined $5,000. However, none of the eight served time—in 1972, a Court of Appeal overturned the criminal convictions and eventually most of the contempt charges were dropped as well.Earth Day started April 22, 1970–I have no memory of this either. The kent state massacre - Google Search closed out my spring, May 4, 1970. (age 21)Amongst all the above mess, the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)—founded 1959 and dissolved 1969—amped up the anti-war movement and splinter groups started making bombs. August 24, 1970, (age 21) a bomb was set off at Sterling Hall, University of Wisconsin–Madison with the intention of destroying the Army Mathematics Research Center (AMRC) housed on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th floors as a protest against the university's research connections with the U.S. military. It killed a university physics researcher and injured three.The Ford Econoline van they used was filled with close to 2,000 pounds of ANFO (Ammonium Nitrate and Fuel Oil.) Pieces of the van were found on top of an eight-story building three blocks away and 26 nearby buildings were damaged. However, the targeted AMRC was scarcely damaged. By comparison, when Timothy McVeigh bombed the Murrah Federal Office Building in Oklahoma City, OK, April 19, 1995, he used about 5,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate and nitromethane (a fuel additive.) [WIKI]Total damage to U Wisconsin–Madison property was over $2.1 million ($13.5 million in 2018.) [WIKI] The greatest legacy of the UW bombing might be as the moment that broke the radical movement in Madison and then caused a peaceful refocusing that returned Madison activism to its roots in the civil rights era. [oops . . . lost source]These guys weren’t always the brightest candles on the cake. March 6, 1970, in a sub-basement furnace room at 18 West 11th Street, Greenwich Village, Manhattan, NYC, a townhouse explosion was caused by the premature detonation of a bomb that was being assembled by members of another American radical left, anti-war group, the Weather Underground (aka the Weathermen)—a splinter group of SDS), . Three bomb makers were killed instantly; and two others were injured but were helped from the scene and later escaped for a while. And then were caught. [WIKI]June 17, 1972, was the Watergate break-in. August 9, 1974,Richard Nixon resigned the presidency on preventing the House from virtually certainly impeaching him with conviction by the Senate equally certain to follow. On September 8, 1974, his successor, Gerald Ford, pardoned him.# # # # #In 1957 the FDA approved the birth control pill, but only for severe menstrual disorders, not as a contraceptive. May 9, 1960, the FDA Advisory Committee voted to approve its use as a birth control pill and was formally approved as an oral contraceptive by the FDA on June 23, 1960. The Women’s Movement began in the late 1960s and continues today. I am intentionally combining these two incidents. By 1967 Women’s Lib was in full flower. It’s been 50–60 years depending on when you start counting. That closely conforms to a dictum from Mao’s Little Red Book that it takes three generations for change to become fixed within a society. A generation is usually marked as twenty years. So in that 50–60 years we have come from the nascent Women’s Lib to #MeToo. Interesting. . . .In 1972, Gloria Steinem, et al, founded MS Magazine, the first mainstream publication of its kind to speak honestly and directly about real women's issues; including being the first magazine to tackle domestic abuse. [Makers] Ms Steinem first broke onto the publishing scene with the most famous expose of Playboy ever written in the amazing May 1963, two-part article in Show magazine—”A Bunny’s Tale”—about what it was like to work as a Playboy bunny at the New York City Playboy club. That time Gloria Steinem went undercover as a Playboy Bunny Scroll halfway down and just past the Playboy cover to IT CONTAINED A SURPRISING AMOUNT OF BODY HORROR for a quick sample of what she had to put up with.All of which perversely brings us to Playboy Magazine, founded by Hugh Hefner in 1953 with a $600 loan against his furniture and investments from family members to launch the magazine with a total of $8,000 ($74,600 in 2018) after getting turned down for a $5 ($46.60 in 2018) raise. Cue the sexual revolution, the exact dates for which seem to be in dispute but which seem to revolve around the late 1960s and through the 1970s# # # # #I wasn’t even aware of this next bit until recently; the latter part of which was happening around me at the time. 1944 gave us the Bretton Woods Conference, which rebuilt the world’s financial system after WWII. It established a rule-based system to regulate international trade and monetary relations. The gold standard had been destroyed by WWI. Attempts to fix it during the 1920s were unsuccessful. The Great Depression continued to break down the global financial system; and international trade collapsed. WWII erased hopes for a return to normalcy. Bretton Woods was designed to include the best parts of the gold standard. By the 1950s, in the US, the Bretton Woods Accords framework resulted in tightly regulated banks; complete credit creation was controlled by the Federal Reserve; dollars were backed by gold; and the government balanced its books. All the pieces were in place to fix the monetary and economic chaos that began with the breakdown of the gold standard in 1914. This worked really well at first: the US economy expanded 49% during the 1950s; 54% during the 1960s. It probably helped that the US was the only industrialized country to survive intact from the ruins of WWII.Then Vietnam happened; which brings this rant back to my life. Not to get all wonky on you; but basically Congress passed legislation in 1965 and 1968 that loosened the ratio of gold relative to the deposits that were required to be held by banks. Wars cost lots of money; and politicians hate raising taxes. During the 1960s, despite the strong growth noted above, the US government ran deficits in 8 of those ten years. By the early 1970s, Bretton Woods had collapsed. On August 15, 1971 (4 days shy of 22,) President Nixon suspended the convertibility of the dollar into gold. March 1972, the Secretary of the Treasury announced that the US was prepared to accept a system of floating exchange rates. On January 1, 1975, all restrictions on the private ownership of gold were lifted and gold could now be freely held in the U.S. without licensing or restrictions of any kind. The price of gold was . . . wait for it . . . $194 an ounce ($897.85 in 2018 dollars which isn’t quite as much fun.) I distinctly remember saying “So what. It’s a fad. I’m not interested in jewelry.” My initial dismissal of the internet is equally embarrassing.Throwing Bretton Woods under the bus resulted in the US government going off the gold standard and losing interest in balancing the budget. By the end of the 1970s, the US government no longer controlled credit creation. The world financial system went from a debt-based economy to a credit-based economy. The argument ends by saying this sequence of events resulted in credit bubbles forming during the 1980s and 1990s and ultimately was responsible for the Great Recession of 2008. [Richard Duncan: The Dollar Crisis; The Corruption of Capitalism; The New Depression — you really should read these !]# # # # #The Woodstock Music and Arts Festival happened on August 14-19, 1969. (age 20) And hair.??? Long hair was a political statement. Huh? Wha’? Nobody had tattoos nor piercings. The movie Hair, based on the eponymous stage-play, is probably the most cringe-worthy interpretation I can think of about this whole 1967–’72 period.Around 1969–71, The Marx Brothers were rediscovered and became cultural icons again. Busby Berkeley musicals were back in vogue; the trippy, kaleidoscopic dance routines were, umm, ah, inspirational. We weren’t allowed to drink beer in the school auditorium where they were shown. :-DLots of really good music was available locally: Spirit twice—and, yes, bleeping Zep stole the intro to Stairway to Heaven (“the law’s an ass—a idiot”, Mr. Bumble in Oliver Twist. Waddaya mean, “Not Guilty?” pfui)—all Randy California cared about was a polite acknowledgement; the money was secondary. It’s amazing, looking back on it, how shared and integral to life music was then. That will likely never happen again; because now the music scene is now so fragmented and diverse that cultural cohesion is severely eroded . . . for better and for worse. Now you have to screen roommates to avoid conflicting musical tastes. Once upon a time, we only worried about duplicate LPs; because they limited exposure to new tunes.Mid-summer 1967: The Shadows of Night; The Electric Prunes; Buffalo Springfield; Jefferson Airplane at a Mpls. Aquatennial concert. Feb. 2, 1969, I was ten people away from the door before getting into the Mpls. Labor Temple for the Grateful Dead with Pigpen; but the fire marshal said, “enough people already” and shut down the box office. The original Velvet Underground, sans Nico; Sweetwater with Nancy Nevins; Minnie Riperton (before she got famous) with her five octave, coloratura soprano, whistle-register as the lead vocalist of the psychedelic soul band Rotary Connection. All these concerts were held at the Labor Temple, Minneapolis’s de facto psychedelic ballroom through 1969-1970. A great venue that regrettably no longer caters to rock concerts. 1971, across the river in Minneapolis, the club that is now known as First Avenue opened under the name Uncle Sam’s.# # # # #Buses weren’t running on that route that late at night. So, having failed to gain admission to the Dead concert, I walked back to Macalester in the sub-freezing cold wearing very wet, light suede shoes—summer shoes—what was I thinking; I wasn’t. No luck hitchhiking a ride that night—just bad luck; that happens. But then, seven months after that late night trek, Charlie Manson went and screwed the pooch and took the nation’s hitchhiking lifestyle down with him. August 9, 1969, were the Manson Murders—one day after my mother’s birthday; ten days before my 20th. Before Manson, I could hitchhike everywhere; after Manson, good luck with that.! Nevertheless, 1970–72, I hitched to once to NYC one way (I couldn’t figure out how to leave and took the bus back); and to California twice, out and back, despite the Manson curse. Spring 1971, a “society matron”—who was driving one of those glorious, grinning grill, All-American 8 cylinder, shark fin tanks that Detroit once made like nobody ever had before nor has ever since—took just one look at me as I was waiting innocuously for a bus on a corner in downtown Minneapolis; and deliberately reached across the front seat; and purposefully depressed the door lock. Keeping eye contact the whole time. The end of an era.# # # # #The house band at Macalester College 1969–1971 was Foxglove and they were every bit as good as major label acts.! Seriously. Thanks, guys.! And they still had their musical chops 45 years later at class reunion despite no longer being a working band.Somewhere during all that above mess, I managed to attend college classes and get a slop-and-splash studio art degree by Spring of 1971 (21+9 months.) I actually graduated with no debt.! Thanks, mom and dad.Of course, I also worked at the college food service 30+/- hours a week; and in the Art Department doing odd jobs all week long. I pretty much sold all of my student art (including—for $50 ($318 in 2018 dollars)—the painting I most wish I hadn’t sold. Damn.) And scrambled to pick up outside, temporary work during semester breaks and over the summers to help pay my way through. comme ci comme ça.Macalester is an elite “prairie ivy”; I doubt if they would let me in anymore. I attend occasional reunions; and make modest donations to the Alumni Fund.August 1971, (age 22) I started King Harvest—later, the St. Cloud Food Co-op. Basically I had no choice but to start my own business; I had no marketable job skills. It still exists as The Good Earth Food Co-op; although I am only remotely involved.# # # # #21 ? Mostly, I spent way too much time smoking pot . . . .