The Education Department’s civil rights office has been among the hardest hit by layoffs, with the Trump administration shuttering seven of its 12 regional offices and laying off nearly half of its staff.
One current employee said the moves amount to a “soft closing” of the office. “This will completely halt the vast majority of cases that we can take in, evaluate and investigate,” said the employee, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retribution.
The Office for Civil Rights, or OCR, aims to protect students by holding schools and colleges that receive federal funds accountable for combating antisemitism, islamophobia, racism and discrimination against students with disabilities.
About 1,300 employees at the Department of Education were informed that they were being laid off Tuesday. The civil rights office lost the largest proportion of employees of all the programs affected – losing 243 of 557 workers, according to an analysis by the non-partisan Ed Reform Now.
The regional offices in New York, Cleveland, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, Dallas and Chicago were closed, with their entire staffs laid off, multiple sources at the department told CNN.
The expectation, employees said, is that the civil rights cases being handled by these offices will be redistributed to the regional offices that remain open in Seattle, Denver, Atlanta, Kansas City and Washington, DC.
Another current OCR employee told CNN they’re concerned about the office’s ability to manage its caseload with the massive reduction in staff.
“There was already a case backlog, and now these cases will simply fall to the wayside,” the employee told CNN. “This work cannot be done without staff. The messaging that this will increase efficiency and that OCR will continue to be able to fulfill its statutorily-mandated mission is a lie – students will suffer harm from this that, for many, will have repercussions for the rest of their lives.”
CNN reached out to the Department of Education for comment but did not get an immediate response.
Current OCR employees also expressed worry about which civil rights investigations will be deprioritized.
The Trump administration has made combating what it considers anti-Israel and antisemitic movements on college campuses a priority.
On Monday, OCR sent letters to 60 colleges and universities it says are under investigation for alleged violations “relating to antisemitic harassment and discrimination,” warning institutions of possible consequences if they don’t take adequate steps to protect Jewish students.
“The political appointees at OCR seem more concerned with politically-motivated directed investigations that rile up their base and that they can investigate through headlines rather than with complaints filed by everyday folks – regular taxpayers – who believe their civil rights have been violated and need help,” a current OCR employee told CNN.
On March 7, OCR acting assistant secretary Craig Trainor sent out a memo to staff, saying the office must act on the backlog of antisemitism complaints, pointing a finger at the prior administration for failing to adequately respond to these cases. While the memo, reviewed by CNN, says that it should not be interpreted as “deprioritizing” other cases, employees point out an inherent contradiction in their new directives.
“With a skeleton crew staff and direction to act on one category of cases, the others are necessarily de-prioritized,” a current employee said, noting that cases involving race and disability, for example, would be deprioritized.
Source: edition.cnn.com
