The inequitable consequences of school disciplinary policies on Black girls in Ohio

Studies have examined the effects of school disciplinary policies and practices on Black boys. Much of this research highlights the degree to which many of these disciplinary policies and practices have affected Black boys in P-12 contexts in negative ways. A small and emerging body of scholarship has begun to investigate the effects of school discipline policies and practices in P-12 contexts on Black girls. The focus of this study was to investigate the effects of disciplinary policies on Black girls in comparison to girls from other races in the 15 largest school districts in Ohio. Drawing from recent out-of-school suspension data from the Office for Civil Rights Data Collection, we examined the degree to which Black girls were suspended out of school in the 15 largest school districts in Ohio. More specifically, out-of-school suspension rates (1 or more suspensions combined) for Black girls in relation to the suspension rates of girls from other racial backgrounds was analyzed. Findings indicated that Black girls were suspended at disproportionately higher rates in the majority of the districts in this study. Recommendations for practice are discussed.

Health Data Privacy in the COVID-19 Pandemic Context: Discourses on HIPAA

Background: Considering the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on health service delivery, the US Office for Civil Rights (OCR) updated the policies on health data processing, and Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Objectives: In this study, we investigated discourses on HIPAA in relation to COVID-19. Methods: Through a search of media sources in the Factiva database, relevant texts were identified. We applied a text mining approach to identify concepts and themes in these texts. Results: Our analysis revealed six central themes, namely, Health, HIPAA, Privacy, Security, Patients, and Need, as well as their associated concepts. Among these, Health was the most frequently discussed theme. It comprised concepts such as public, care, emergency, providers, telehealth, entity, use, discretion, OCR, Health and Human Services (HHS), enforcement, business, and services. Conclusion: Our discourse analysis of media outlets highlights the role of health data privacy law in the response to global public health emergencies and demonstrates how discourse analysis and computational methods can inform health data protection policymaking in the digital health era.

Estimating the Impact of Expulsions, Suspensions, and Arrests on Average School Proficiency Rates in Ohio using Fixed Effects

<p>This study uses panel data (2011-12, 2013-14, 2015-16) from three sources—the US Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (OCR), the National Center for Education Statistics’ Common Core Data (CCD), and the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) school report cards. These data were then merged using a common key to create one large dataset. OCR and CCD data have a common school identification key that was readily available. Data from ODE contained Building and District identification numbers that were concatenated to create a school ID that was identical to the one in the other two datasets.</p>

Estimating the Impact of Expulsions, Suspensions, and Arrests on Average School Proficiency Rates in Ohio using Fixed Effects

<p>This study uses panel data (2011-12, 2013-14, 2015-16) from three sources—the US Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (OCR), the National Center for Education Statistics’ Common Core Data (CCD), and the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) school report cards. These data were then merged using a common key to create one large dataset. OCR and CCD data have a common school identification key that was readily available. Data from ODE contained Building and District identification numbers that were concatenated to create a school ID that was identical to the one in the other two datasets.</p>

Estimating the Impact of Expulsions, Suspensions, and Arrests on Average School Proficiency Rates in Ohio using Fixed Effects

<p>This study uses panel data (2011-12, 2013-14, 2015-16) from three sources—the US Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (OCR), the National Center for Education Statistics’ Common Core Data (CCD), and the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) school report cards. These data were then merged using a common key to create one large dataset. OCR and CCD data have a common school identification key that was readily available. Data from ODE contained Building and District identification numbers that were concatenated to create a school ID that was identical to the one in the other two datasets.</p>

Changes in the office for civil rights enforcement policy on telehealth remote communications in response to COVID-19

The novel coronavirus, the cause of COVID-19, has sent shockwaves throughout the world, shuttered many businesses essentially overnight, and has left billions living worldwide in quarantine. Not surprisingly, the health care industry has been significantly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. This article focuses on how COVID-19 has influenced the Office for Civil Rights’ (OCR’s) enforcement of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) Privacy and Security Rules as they relate to telehealth remote communications, and opines about whether the COVID-19-related changes to HIPAA Privacy Rule and Security Rule enforcement might last beyond the current crisis.

Cybersecurity Risks in a Pandemic

Cybersecurity threats are estimated to cost the world US $6 trillion a year by 2021, and the number of attacks has increased five-fold after COVID-19. Although there is substantial literature on the threats technological vulnerabilities have on the health care industry, less research exists on how pandemics like COVID-19 are opportunistic for cybercriminals. This paper outlines why cyberattacks have been particularly problematic during COVID-19 and ways that health care industries can better protect patient data. The Office for Civil Rights has loosened enforcement of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which, although useful in using new platforms like Zoom, has also loosened physical and technical safeguards to cyberattacks. This is especially problematic given that 90% of health care providers had already encountered data breaches. Companies must implement well-defined software upgrade procedures, should use secure networks like virtual local area networks, and conduct regular penetration tests of their systems. By understanding factors that make individuals, health care organizations, and employers more susceptible to cyberattacks, we can better prepare for the next pandemic.

Cybersecurity Risks in a Pandemic (Preprint)

UNSTRUCTURED Cybersecurity threats are estimated to cost the world US $6 trillion a year by 2021, and the number of attacks has increased five-fold after COVID-19. Although there is substantial literature on the threats technological vulnerabilities have on the health care industry, less research exists on how pandemics like COVID-19 are opportunistic for cybercriminals. This paper outlines why cyberattacks have been particularly problematic during COVID-19 and ways that health care industries can better protect patient data. The Office for Civil Rights has loosened enforcement of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which, although useful in using new platforms like Zoom, has also loosened physical and technical safeguards to cyberattacks. This is especially problematic given that 90% of health care providers had already encountered data breaches. Companies must implement well-defined software upgrade procedures, should use secure networks like virtual local area networks, and conduct regular penetration tests of their systems. By understanding factors that make individuals, health care organizations, and employers more susceptible to cyberattacks, we can better prepare for the next pandemic.

An examination of the bidirectional relationship between federal civil rights guidance and research

As the primary agency responsible for enforcing federal civil rights laws in the educational context, the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issues policy guidance to help ensure that school districts and universities understand their legal obligations. These policy guidance documents have direct connections to topics studied by educational researchers (e.g., disproportionality in special education, race conscious admissions policies in higher education, transgender student inclusion, etc.). However, we do not have an empirical understanding of how this guidance is used by the research community. Nor do we have a strong grasp on the extent to which this guidance is explicitly informed by research. It is important to acquire an empirical understanding of the bidirectional relationship between research and educational policy in the context of civil rights enforcement in order to determine areas of strength and those in need of improvement. Specifically, this study poses the following research questions: 1) How often and in what ways do scholars explicitly use OCR policy guidance to inform their research? What are the characteristics of this research? 2) Conversely, how often and in what ways does OCR explicitly use research to inform policy guidance? What are the characteristics of research cited in OCR guidance?