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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Education Department’s civil rights branch is losing nearly half its staff in the Trump administration’s layoffs, effectively gutting an office that already faced a backlog of thousands of complaints from students and families across the nation.
Among a total of more than 1,300 layoffs announced Tuesday were roughly 240 in the department’s Office for Civil Rights, according to a list obtained and verified by The Associated Press. Seven of the civil rights agency’s 12 regional offices were entirely laid off, including busy hubs in New York, Chicago, and Dallas. Despite assurances that the department’s work will continue unaffected, huge numbers of cases appear to be in limbo.
The Trump administration has not said how it will proceed with thousands of cases being handled by staff it’s eliminating. The cases involve families trying to get school services for students with disabilities, allegations of bias related to race and religion, and complaints over sexual violence at schools and college campuses.
Some staffers who remain said there’s no way to pick up all of their fired colleagues’ cases. Many were already struggling to keep pace with their own caseloads. With fewer than 300 workers, families likely will be waiting on resolution for years, they said.
“I fear they won’t get their calls answered, their complaints won’t move,” said Michael Pillera, a senior civil rights attorney for the Office for Civil Rights. “I truly don’t understand how a handful of offices could handle the entire country.”
Department officials insisted the cuts will not affect civil rights investigations. The reductions were “strategic decisions,” spokesperson Madison Biedermann.
“OCR will be able to deliver the work,” Biedermann said. “It will have to look different, and we know that.”
The layoffs are part of a dramatic downsizing directed by President Donald Trump as he moves to reduce the footprint of the federal government. Along with the Office of Civil Rights, the top divisions to lose hundreds of staffers in the layoffs included Federal Student Aid, which manages the federal student loan portfolio, and the Institute of Education Sciences, which oversees assessments of whether the education system is working and research into best teaching practices.
Trump has pushed for a full shutdown of the Education Department, calling it a “con job” and saying its power should be turned over to states. On Wednesday he told reporters many agency employees “don’t work at all.” Responding to the layoffs, he said his administration is “keeping the best ones.”
After the cuts, the Office for Civil Rights will only have workers in Washington and five regional offices, which traditionally take the lead on investigating complaints and mediating resolutions with schools and colleges. Buildings are being closed and staff laid off in Dallas, Chicago, New York, Boston, Cleveland, Philadelphia, and San Francisco.
Many lawyers at the New York City office were juggling 80 or more cases, said one staffer who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear for reprisals. The branch often mediated cases with New York City schools, the nation’s largest district, and its lawyers were handling a high-profile antisemitism investigation at Columbia University — a priority for Trump.
The staffer described several pending cases involving students with disabilities who are wrongly being kept out of school because of behavioral issues. With limited oversight from the office, they said, school districts will be less likely to comply with legal requirements.
Pillera, who had said before the cuts that he was leaving the department, said it’s unclear how complaints will be investigated in areas that no longer have offices.
“We have to physically go to schools,” Pillera said. “We have to look at the playground to see if it’s accessible for kids with disabilities. We have to measure doorways and bathrooms to see if everything is accessible for kids with disabilities.”
Layoffs follow Trump-mandated freeze on civil rights cases
Even before the layoffs, the civil rights office had been losing staff even as complaints rose to record levels. The workforce had fallen below 600 staffers before Trump took office, and they faced nearly 23,000 complaints filed last year, more than ever.
Trump officials ordered a freeze on most cases when they arrived at the department, adding to the backlog. When Education Secretary Linda McMahon lifted the freeze last week, there were more than 20,000 pending cases.
Historically, most of the office’s work deals with disability rights cases, but it has fielded growing numbers of complaints alleging discrimination based on sex or race. It has also played a prominent role in investigating complaints of antisemitism and Islamophobia amid the Israel-Hamas war and a wave of campus demonstrations that spread across the country last year.
Craig Trainor, Trump’s appointee to oversee the office, directed staff to focus on antisemitism cases as a top priority last week. In a memo, he accused former President Joe Biden of failing to hold colleges accountable and promised tougher action against violators.
At her confirmation hearing, McMahon said the goal is not to defund key programs but to make them operate more efficiently. She vowed to uphold the agency’s civil rights work but said it might fit better being moved to the Justice Department.
The civil rights office was not the only division to lose attorneys key to the Education Department’s portfolio. Tuesday’s layoffs have nearly eliminated all staff working in the department’s Office of the General Counsel, say two people familiar with the situation, who didn’t want to speak publicly for fear of reprisals.
Attorneys in the division advised the department on the legality of its actions, helped enforce how states and schools spent federal money meant for disadvantaged K-12 students, and watched for conflicts of interest among internal staff and appointees, among other things.
Of the approximately 100 staff members working before Trump took office, only around two dozen remain. The majority of those still employed advise the department on higher education, including financial aid programs.
An email the Education Department sent to all staff after the layoffs said there will need to be significant changes to how they work.
“What we choose to prioritize, and in turn, not prioritize, will be critical in this transition,” the message said.
AP Education Writer Bianca Vázquez Toness contributed reporting.
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