A little-known civil rights office at the Department of Education that helps resolve complaints from students around the country about discrimination and housing disabilities has been axed by the Trump administration and now faces a backlog, a changing workforce and an unclear mandate.
Even those who work there say they don’t trust the agency to help their own children.
“It’s a black hole – there’s no staff, there’s no rhyme or reason to what they’re doing, and there’s no mission to actually effectively enforce civil rights laws,” said a longtime lawyer in the office. At this point, the employee wouldn’t even turn to the office “if I had an issue with my student or my kids.”
The Office for Civil Rights was established to help provide equal access to education for all students and to protect students from discrimination based on race, ethnicity, sex, age and disability status, by holding schools and colleges that receive federal funds accountable.
Conceived as an alternative to costly and time-consuming litigation, the office is considered a last resort for many families when other avenues – negotiations with teachers, school administration, school districts – have been exhausted.
However, more than half a dozen attorneys who work in the office or have left this year say it has been hampered by cuts during the Trump administration that have eliminated nearly 80 percent of the staff and created a backlog of thousands of cases. The department is trying to recall some employees on leave, in part, to address the backlog.
The sources, who spoke to CNN anonymously for fear of retaliation, also said the office has shifted from its original mission to prioritize combat policies that promote DEI and allow transgender athletes to compete while focusing on anti-Semitism investigations.
Among the cases that were not resolved as a result, according to the remaining staff: A student with a disability who says she is not allowed to go on field trips because the school cannot accommodate their special needs, and a girl who says she is being forced to go to class with another student who has been accused of sexual harassment because the school did not address the issue.
“I’ve seen hundreds of cases from my office that had no one working on them, no one assigned to them, no one responding to inquiries, no investigative work, no enforcement,” says another attorney at the civil rights office, known as OCR.
The headquarters of the United States Department of Education was seen in Washington, DC, on March 12. – Nathan Howard/Reuters
“When a student is subjected to racial slurs in the classroom, when a school refuses to provide accommodations related to disability, when a survivor reports sexual harassment and nothing is done, or when students who are learning English are denied the language services they need – those situations cannot wait,” said Mary Rohmiller, an attorney who left more than five years with the OCR department.
Julie Hartman, press secretary for legal affairs at the Department of Education, told CNN in a statement that “the Trump Administration is reorienting OCR to what it is meant to be: a law enforcement agency, not an arm of the federal government promoting social justice.”
The department points to a broader effort by the Trump administration to scrutinize college policies and campus speech, while threatening to cut federal funding. This led to settlements with a number of universities, including Columbia and Northwestern.
“These treatments removed DEI and unconstitutional race preferences, recognized gender as a biological reality in sports and intimate spaces, and implemented steps to consistently apply disciplinary policies to ensure that all students enjoy a safe learning environment,” Hartman said.
Disenchanted employees at the civil rights office got what they thought was welcome news last week. The Department of Education has informed employees who were terminated earlier this year, then placed on administrative leave in an ongoing court battle, that they will return to work later this month. The email to about 250 employees noted that they are needed to address the existing case.
But the reprieve may be short-lived.
When asked about the staff recall, Hartman said the move is “temporary” and that the department will continue to defend the shooting in court.
With a growing backlog
While the OCR backlog is typical in many administrations, the number of cases awaiting action has grown in the Trump administration.
About 24,000 complaints to the civil rights office remain unresolved as of this week, compared to 16,500 pending cases at the end of the Biden administration. The current backlog of complaints would be even higher, according to a source at OCR, but the number of complaints filed has dropped more than 20 percent. The source attributes the decline to the Trump administration sending a message that it is not prioritizing civil rights.
Once one of the largest federal civil rights agencies, OCR was among the hardest hit by layoffs at the Department of Education in March, as part of the DOGE-led effort to shrink the size of the federal government.
The Trump administration has closed seven of its twelve regional offices and laid off almost half of its staff. The office went from more than 550 employees to just over 300. Additional terminations came during the government shutdown in October, and multiple sources estimate that about 100 employees remained.
The US Department of Education is seen reflected in the windows of a building behind the Safeguard Students, Empower Education Rally & Press Conference at the US Department of Education on April 29, in Washington, DC. – Pete Kiehart for The Washington Post/Getty Images
Additionally, prior to this year, there were four enforcement directors, an important role that typically handles the more intensive policy cases. Now there is only one enforcement director for the entire country, two sources told CNN.
“No one is doing this work,” said a third lawyer in the office, “It seems that we are really going back in time and that there is a literal attempt to reverse all the protections that provide full access to education to all students.”
Several employees who were placed on administrative leave told CNN that they felt like they were in “purgatory” for months. While they were still being paid, they were prohibited from working – and from responding to requests from families seeking help or updates on their cases.
For the employees who remained, the typical investigator’s caseload went from 35 to more than 80 cases per attorney. Some lawyers say that some cases simply fail or are ignored.
“It makes me so anxious for those families that they just don’t hear from us,” said the fourth lawyer.
“These are all real people; these are real Americans who want and need us to address all the cases,” the lawyer added. “These are children’s lives. These are desperate parents.”
The office is also dismissing cases at an increasing pace, court documents reveal. About 7,000 cases have been dismissed under the Trump administration – hundreds more than in the same period last year under Biden.
Meanwhile, there is a “huge priority shift” in which cases the civil rights office is taking on and investigating, according to the longtime attorney, who said political appointees are pushing the president’s “pet projects” forward, as career federal employees continue to work on basic discrimination cases — with fewer resources.
The Department of Education ordered OCR staff in March to immediately prioritize addressing antisemitism investigations initiated during the Biden administration, but another source in the department denies the move has drawn resources or distracted from the other cases awaiting OCR action.
Students wait
Rather than turning to the courts, which can be an expensive and time-consuming option for schools and families, OCR favors swift action. The aim is to complete most cases in a matter of months, to minimize impacts on students as they await a resolution.
“Students should not have to wait years for OCR to step in and make sure they have a safe environment and equal access to education,” said Rohmiller, the former OCR employee. “Children are devastated by this delay. They need action now. But right now, too many of these cases are falling by the wayside.”
One mother in the Atlanta area said she has been waiting months for a resolution to her case before the civil rights office.
Her 12-year-old daughter, who is autistic and very sensitive to loud and sudden noises, has an individual education plan that takes into account her disability and dictates that she must leave the school building before the fire alarms, which are particularly disorganizing for her.
But within a week at a new school in September, the mother told CNN she received a panicked text from her daughter as a fire alarm was going off, saying she wasn’t allowed to leave beforehand.
The mother, who asked not to be named because her case is still pending, got into the car and drove to the middle school. When she arrived, she saw her daughter in a spiral. The girl missed an hour of class as they worked together to calm down.
“Her face was all red – swollen. She was crying. I could tell she was embarrassed.”
According to the mother, the school said it does not have the resources to escort her daughter out before the alarms. Instead, the school gave her the fire drill schedule so she could leave her job to do it herself.
It’s a routine that you may need to stick to for a while.
“I think the OCR may be defeated right now,” she told CNN, “I don’t have my hopes up.”
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