Roundtable Discussion: Combating Discriminatory Seclusion Practices

The U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division held a virtual program featuring opening remarks from Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Kristen Clarke and a panel discussion with Candace Mulcahy, Associate Professor of Special Education at Binghamton University; Michael Wilson, Director of The Education Discipline and Justice Group; Guy Stephens, Founder and Executive Director of the Alliance Against Seclusion and Restraint; Jeanette Lobeck, Intervention Coordinator for the North Gibson School Corporation; Kristi Kimmel, parent whose son was secluded; and Jonathan Newton, Deputy Chief of the Civil Rights Division’s Educational Opportunities Section. Karen Love, Civil Rights Analyst in the Civil Rights Division’s Educational Opportunities Section, moderated the panel. The panelists discussed harmful school seclusion practices, methods to address behavior through therapeutic alternatives to seclusion, and the Department’s enforcement of civil rights statutes as they relate to the seclusion of students with disabilities. For more information about the Educational Opportunities Section’s work on combating improper seclusions in schools, visit https://www.justice.gov/crt/schoolseclusion.