By Alvin Buyinza
Overview:
In line with the Authorities Accountability Workplace, whereas almost half of the Schooling Division’s Workplace of Civil Rights workers had been laid off final 12 months, the federal company resolved 90 p.c of discrimination circumstances throughout that point.
The Schooling Division workplace chargeable for defending the rights of marginalized and minority college students within the nation’s Okay-12 public faculties dismissed almost each discrimination grievance it acquired final 12 months, as a result of Trump administration’s huge discount in power, in accordance with a brand new authorities watchdog report.
On the identical time, the Authorities Accountability Workplace discovered that the administration’s try to put off about half of the division’s Workplace for Civil Rights — a transfer that was challenged in court docket — could have value taxpayers as a lot as $38 million over the 9 months it took to resolve the case.
The amount of discrimination circumstances the civil rights workplace dismissed and the value tag for gutting the workplace spotlight the dramatic results of the Trump administration’s twin targets for public training: dismantling the Schooling Division and waging a so-called “conflict on woke” that might finish federal enforcement of civil rights legislation.
The Workplace of Civil Rights is in ‘Turmoil’
Katy Neas, CEO of The Arc of america, stated in an announcement that the GAO report exhibits how the civil rights workplace has been “thrown into turmoil” whilst discrimination complaints compound and vanish from the general public eye.
“Households have a proper to show to OCR when a toddler is denied lodging, pushed out of sophistication, harassed, or disciplined unfairly due to incapacity,” stated Neas, whose group protects incapacity rights. “When these complaints aren’t addressed, faculties lose clear course, households lose solutions, and college students dwell with the results for years.”
“Rights are solely significant when enforcement exists,” she stated.
On the marketing campaign path, President Donald Trump promised to shutter the Schooling Division. In March, Trump laid off almost half of the OCR workers and shuttered seven of the division’s 12 regional places of work. However a federal choose blocked the transfer final summer time.
Whereas the case was ongoing, the Trump administration put the staff on administrative depart and instructed them to not report back to work. That meant taxpayers had been nonetheless paying their salaries, although they weren’t really working.
Between March 11 and Sept. 23, 2025, the division’s Workplace of Civil Rights acquired over 9,000 complaints alleging discrimination, in accordance with a report from the Authorities Accountability Workplace. Greater than 7,000 of these complaints — round 90 p.c — had been dismissed.
In 2025, OCR, underneath the Trump administration, solely reached a decision settlement in simply two out of 14 racial harassment circumstances, in accordance with the OCR.
What’s the Workplace of Civil Rights?
The Schooling Division’s OCR is the sector that handles circumstances of discrimination towards race, intercourse, incapacity, faith and age in faculties and faculties. The workplace investigates these complaints and sends out tips to the respective establishment to adjust to civil rights legislation.
Complaints could be dismissed for a wide range of causes, the report says. Within the GAO’s 2021 report on college bullying, for instance, adjustments to OCR’s steerage led to a pointy uptick in dismissals of bullying complaints. The dismissal charge additionally jumped from 49 p.c of resolved complaints within the 2010-2011 college 12 months to 81 p.c within the 2019-2020 college 12 months.
However in comparison with prior years and administrations, the division, underneath Trump’s second time period, is dismissing much more complaints and issuing fewer resolutions. Consultants say this might result in extra civil rights abuses going unnoticed.
Even with its workforce slashed by half, the OCR remains to be receiving discrimination complaints.
Discrimination complaints are worsening
Beth Gellman-Beer, who led the OCR’s regional workplace in Philadelphia earlier than being laid off in March, says her workplace had 1,000 circumstances on the docket when her crew acquired discover that it will be minimize. Below the Trump administration, the bigoted conduct her workplace investigated had develop into extra egregious.
She cited a case from 2024 regarding college students at a Pennsylvania highschool who wore Accomplice flag apparel through the college’s homecoming week.
The scholars posted on social media that anybody who had an issue with the Accomplice flag ought to “go down south and name a white individual racist and see what occurs.”
Mother and father, academics and group leaders alerted college officers, in accordance with the grievance. Though college directors compelled college students to take away their apparel, in addition they insisted they didn’t consider the conduct amounted to racial harassment.
Gellman-Beer says she typically thinks about that case and comparable circumstances. With no sturdy OCR workforce, there’s just about nobody obtainable to make sure faculties adjust to civil rights legal guidelines.
“Nobody’s following up on these circumstances. That’s what retains me up at evening,” she says.
Tens of millions of {dollars} spent on mass layoffs
The GAO report discovered that the mass layoffs Trump known as for could have value as much as $38 million in salaries and advantages for OCR employees who weren’t working between March and December.
The Schooling Division additionally did not account for all attainable prices and financial savings related to its mass layoffs and reorganization, in accordance with the report. Moreover, the division didn’t element its analyses regardless of course from the Workplace of Administration and Finances and the
Workplace of Personnel Administration.
“With out absolutely accounting for prices and financial savings and documenting its analyses, [the Education Department] lacks affordable assurance that its actions achieved the acknowledged purpose of reforming its federal workforce to maximise effectivity and productiveness, together with whether or not such actions improved service to the American folks, elevated productiveness, or saved taxpayer {dollars}.”
