FIRST ON FOX: A Wisconsin parent is mulling legal action over a situation where she alleges her son was passed over being given the extra learning attention he needed due to language on the school’s website that says it prioritizes additional help for students based on race.

Attorneys for the Wisconsin Institute by Law & Liberty to the Green Bay Area Public School District, argue on behalf of their client, Mrs. Colbey Decker, that a “troubling” and “unlawful” policy in the district “explicitly prioritizes reading support resources based on race, thereby violating the U.S. Constitution and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,” according to a letter obtained by Fox News Digital.

“Mrs. Decker’s child, who suffers from dyslexia, has received different (and less favorable) services because he is white,” the letter states. “If he was Black, Hispanic, or Native American, Mrs. Decker’s son would have been treated more favorably and received different services.”

Decker told Fox News Digital that her son had been receiving one-on-one reading services in another district and that she assumed he would continue receiving that when he moved into the current district in January 2024 but that he was waitlisted for that additional help. 

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Decker explained that she learned of the policy while looking at the school’s website.

“I asked them point blank, does he receive less services or is he less of a priority because he’s white?” Decker said. “And even asking that question made me extremely uncomfortable because to think that someone isn’t getting the services they deserve because of the color of their skin is just horrifying. So the principal did respond to me, and much to my surprise, he was very excited to explain to me the work they do in these priority groups.”

The letter alleges, citing the school’s website, that the “district’s literacy policy establishes ‘priority groups’ race—namely, Black, Hispanic, and Native American students—and states that the school will conduct intentional work educating our focus students, prioritizing additional resources to First Nations, Black, and Hispanic students.”

“This policy is in effect and has been applied to Mrs. Decker’s son, according to multiple district employees.”

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A Wisconsin mom said every parent ‘just wants their child to be treated equally’ (iStock)

The language on the school website also states next to an asterisk at the bottom of the page that, “Priority performance goals are established based on data that shows us we are meeting the needs of some student groups better than others.” 

“Focusing on a priority performance group of students will elevate our skills as educators and ultimately benefit all students.”

The letter to the district asks that the policy, known as the King Elementary School Success Plan, be rescinded in favor of a “colorblind approach” to resource allocation along with “immediate and adequate support” to Decker’s son “who has been unfairly excluded from the opportunity to receive necessary resources.”

“Seeing a policy that explicitly prioritizes resources based on race is really troubling, both morally and legally,” WILL associate counsel Cory Brewer told Fox News Digital. “The law demands that Colbey’s son and any child be treated equally to other children, regardless of their race. There should not be special treatment based on skin color. And the fact that this district is embracing the idea that they need to treat children differently based on race is really problematic.”

“We are asking the district to rescind its discriminatory policy immediately to implement a colorblind approach to how it allocates resources, focusing on the needs of the individual student. And we’re also asking the district to provide Colby’s son with the resources that he needs,” Brewer continued. “There’s no reason it should be taking this long for him to get that support. If the district does not change its discriminatory policy, the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty will pursue all legal avenues to protect the rights of Colbey’s son.”

Fox News Digital reached out to the Green Bay Area School District for comment and received the following statement on Tuesday, “The District received the letter from WILL yesterday and we are investigating the allegations. However, we can state unequivocally that the District does not have a policy that includes the language included in the letter.” 

“All District policies must be approved by the Board of Education and no such policy language exists.”

The spokesperson added that the language in the School Success Plan is “developed to outline the school’s goals toward continuous improvement, but would not be considered Board (District) policy” which the spokesperson called an “important distinction.”

Decker told Fox News Digital that other parents she has spoken to “can’t believe” the situation when told about it and every parent “just wants their child to be treated equally.”

“Any time a parent or a grandparent advocates for a child, I know that their sincere hope is that that child is just treated equally,” Decker said. “And that’s not what’s happening when someone is a priority. If someone is more of a priority than someone else’s child has to be less of a priority. And I don’t think that’s the way most of America wants to move forward with education.”

“I think everybody wants us to just be completely color-blind and look at children as simply being children. My son is in the 17th percentile in the state for reading, and there are children who are performing at a higher level than him that are more of a priority only because of their skin color. And I don’t think most parents want anything like that to ever happen in any educational setting ever.”

WASHINGTON —  The Supreme Court may be about to sharply limit the reach of so-called environmental impact statements, which gauge potential harm caused by new developments and can often block or scale back large projects.

For more than 50 years, federal law has required agencies to take a hard and broad look at the “reasonably foreseeable environmental effects” of a building or development project before approving it.

The justices sounded ready on Tuesday to reconsider that approach in a case involving a proposed 88-mile railroad line in Utah that would allow crude oil to be shipped to refineries on the Gulf Coast.

“Focus on the project,” argued Paul Clement, a Washington attorney representing county governments in support of the project. He urged justices to consider only the direct impact of the rail line’s construction, and not potential secondary impacts that are “remote in time and space.”

In their comments and questions, the justices appeared to agree.

If so, their ruling could rein in the reach of environmental impact statements, an outcome that would be welcomed by developers and condemned by environmentalists.

Three years ago, the Surface Transportation Board, the federal agency which regulates freight railroads, approved the construction of the Utah rail project

But it did not weigh the environmental impact of drilling new oil wells in northeastern Utah, the extra air pollution at the refineries on the Gulf or the danger of sending nine more trains per day along the Colorado River and through the Rockies.

Environmentalists sued along with Eagle County, Colo., and won a ruling from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals last year that said the board had failed to consider the “upstream and downstream” impacts on the environment.

The seven Utah counties appealed, arguing the D.C. court had gone too far.

Eight justices appeared to agree that decision should be reversed.

Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, a Colorado native who is a friend of billionaire Philip Anschutz, said last week that he would not participate in the decision. Anschutz is not a party to the case, but the Anschutz Exploration Group, which produces oil and gas in Utah, Colorado and Wyoming, submitted a friend-of-the-court brief which urged the court to limit the law’s focus to environmental effects that are under the direct control of an agency.

Clement, who represented the seven Utah counties, said the court should rein in the “bloated and anti-development” impact statements that range too broadly.

He said it made sense for the federal board to consider the railroad’s potential impact on the bighorn sheep in the area, but not “imponderables,” such as a potential rail accident hundreds of miles away or extra air pollution on the Gulf Coast.

The Center for Biological Diversity, which sued to challenge the Utah railroad, said environmental impact statements have been crucial to protecting the environment since the early 1970s. It said agencies have been on notice “to consider whether their actions will have long-term, and potentially irreversible, environmental effects.”

These impact statements permit the government and the public to weigh the harms as well as the benefits of a new development.

Wendy Park, an attorney at the center, said “communities in the Uinta Basin and the Gulf Coast will suffer the most from this oil railroad, while oil companies enrich themselves at the expense of the environment and people’s health. It’s disgraceful the railroad’s backers want federal agencies to turn a blind eye to those harms.”

The pardon debate – individual, group, partisan, preemptive – is spinning out of control.

In his “Meet the Press” interview, Donald Trump mocked Joe Biden’s repeated assurances about Hunter: “‘I’m not going to give my son a pardon. I will not under any circumstances give him a pardon.’ I watch this and I always knew he was going to give him a pardon.”

In a portion of that interview that did not air but was posted online, the president-elect complained to Kristen Welker:

“The press was obviously unfair to me. The press, no president has ever gotten treated by the press like I was.”

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Why did he appear on “Meet the Press”? “You’re very hostile,” Trump said. Her response: “Well, hopefully, you thought it was a fair interview. We covered a lot of policy grounds.”

“It’s fair only in that you allowed me to say what I say. But you know, the answers to questions are, you know, pretty nasty. But look, because I’ve seen you interview other people like Biden.”

“I’ve never interviewed President Biden,” Welker responded. Trump said he was speaking “metaphorically.”

“I’ve seen George Stephanopoulos interview. And he’s a tough interviewer. It’s the softest interview I’ve seen. CNN interview. They give these soft, you know, what’s your favorite ice cream? It’s a whole different deal. I don’t understand why.”

The strength of Welker’s approach is that she asked as many as half a dozen follow-ups on major topics, making more news. When she asked, for instance, whether he would actually deport 11 million illegal immigrants, as he’d said constantly on the campaign trail, he answered yes – which for some reason lots of news outlets led with. But a subsequent question got Trump to say he didn’t think the Dreamers should be expelled and would work it out with the Democrats.

As for Trump, he reminded me of the candidate I interviewed twice this year. He was sharp and serious, connecting on each pitch, fouling a few off. This was not the candidate talking about sharks at rallies. 

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With one significant misstep, he made the case that he was not seeking retribution – even backing off a campaign pledge that he would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Biden.

That misstep, when Trump couldn’t hold back, was in saying of the House Jan. 6 Committee members, including Liz Cheney: “For what they did, honestly, they should go to jail.”

He did add the caveat that he would let his attorney general and FBI chief make that decision, but it allowed media outlets to lead with Trump wanting his political opponents behind bars. For what it’s worth, there’s no crime in lawmakers holding hearings, and this business about them withholding information seems like a real stretch.

Now back to the pardons. This mushrooming debate was obviously triggered by the president breaking his repeated promise with a sweeping, decade-long pardon of his son, a 54-year-old convicted criminal.

But then, as first reported by Politico, we learned that the Biden White House is debating whether to issue a whole bunch of preemptive pardons to people perceived to be potential targets of Trumpian retaliation.

But the inconvenient truth is that anyone accepting such a pardon would essentially admit to the appearance of being guilty. That’s why Sen.-elect Adam Schiff says he doesn’t want a pardon and won’t accept one.

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But many of those potential recipients don’t even know they’re under consideration for sweeping pardons covering anything they may or may not have done.

It is a truly awful idea, and with Biden and Trump both agreeing that DOJ engages in unfair and selective prosecutions – which in the Republican’s case made his numbers go up – the stage is set for endless rounds of payback against each previous administration.

I remember first thinking about the unchecked power of presidential pardons when Bill Clinton delivered a last-minute one to ally and super-wealthy Marc Rich.

Former President Bill Clinton used his pardoning power to let off Marc Rich, an uber-wealthy ally of his. (Photo by Julia Beverly/Getty Images)

So it’s time to hear from Alexander Hamilton, who pushed it into the Constitution. Keep in mind that in that horse-and-buggy era, there were very few federal offenses because most law enforcement was done by the states.

In Federalist 74, published in 1788, Hamilton said a single person was better equipped than an unwieldy group, and such decisions should be broadly applied to help those in need.   

“In seasons of insurrection or rebellion,” the future Treasury secretary wrote, “there are often critical moments, when a welltimed offer of pardon to the insurgents or rebels may restore the tranquillity of the commonwealth.”

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Otherwise, it might be too late.

But another founding father, George Mason, opposed him, saying a president “may frequently pardon crimes which were advised by himself. It may happen, at some future day, that he will establish a monarchy, and destroy the republic. If he has the power of granting pardons before indictment, or conviction, may he not stop inquiry and prevent detection?”

An excellent argument, but Hamilton won out.

As Hamilton envisioned, George Washington, in 1794, granted clemency to leaders of the Whiskey Rebellion to calm a fraught situation.

Something tells me that Biden, Trump and their allies aren’t poring over the Federalist papers. But it’s still an awful lot of sweeping power to place in the hands of one chief executive, for which the only remedy is impeachment.