In the waning days of the Obama Administration, the U.S. Department of Transportation saw reason to investigate the civil rights implications of a decision to cancel funding for the Baltimore Red Line light rail project.
Angie Schmitt reports on the latest twist of the Baltimore Red Line saga: The Trump Administration has quietly ended an investigation into the question of whether Governor Larry Hogan's decision to kill the project violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.
"Now, six months into the Trump presidency, U.S. DOT has quietly terminated the civil rights investigation, without elaborating why," according to Schmitt. The article also includes a passage from a statement by NAACP Legal Defense Fund President Sherrilyn Ifill in response to the decision.
According to Schmitt, the Red Line investigation could have had groundbreaking scope and impact: "If investigators had ruled against Hogan, U.S. DOT could have frozen all federal transportation funds to Maryland until the problem had been remedied."
Read the full story: Trump DOT Shuts Down Civil Rights Probe of Larry Hogan’s Decision to Kill the Red Line
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The infamous cancellation of the Red Line, a decision made by Gov. Larry Hogan shortly after he took office, is a high-profile example of how the state's transportation decisions are short-changing people of color.
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