The U.S. Dept. of Justice is blaming a massive $1.3 trillion spending bill Congress passed and President Trump signed in to law Friday as the reason it has decided to cancel school safety and school violence research studies. Those programs had just been enabled under the Stop School Violence Act of 2018, which became law less than two weeks ago.
“The National Institute of Justice has canceled both the Comprehensive School Safety Initiative and Research and Evaluation of Technologies to Improve School Safety solicitations,” the NIJ, a DOJ agency, announced on its website.
“With the enactment of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018, the funding planned for these solicitations is no longer available for research and evaluation. Instead, it will be used for other purposes under the Stop School Violence Act of 2018.”
That “no longer available” claim is discretionary, and the NIJ did not indicate for what “other purposes” the funds would be used.
The Hill, in reporting the cuts to the research studies, notes that “Congress approved funding for the CSSI in the wake of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting to fill gaps created by a ban on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) research into gun violence. The omnibus signed Friday paved the way for that research to be conducted.”
One of the leading researchers into school violence who created the Obama Dept. of Education’s StopBully.gov website calls the DOJ’s move a “true loss.”
Temkin says the CSSI research “help[s] us understand what’s going to work in schools to keep them safe.”
The timing of the DOJ’s decision is stunning, given that in over 800 U.S. cities across all 50 states people are protesting gun violence and demanding stronger gun control laws in the March for Our Lives rallies organized by the Parkland, Florida school shooting survivors.