When the Trump administration announced last week that it would fire half of the U.S. Department of Education, while cuts publicly closed the San Francisco-area branch of the Office of Civil Rights, responsible for providing protections to students in the state from discrimination.
The California Office dealt with a raised student, family and school staff: alleged inequality in academic guidance for students with disabilities; allegations of sexual assault on campus; claims of unfair discipline submitted to students of color; alleged bullying of LGBTQ+ students.
These cases include those that alleged anti-discrimination, such as unfair or illegal advantages provided to race or ethnic minorities.
About 1,500 California cases are under trial, according to multiple ruling attorneys from the Bay Area Office, who say they are largely locked out of case files and emails. They can receive messages on the case but cannot respond after receiving notices of layoffs, although the technology is employed until March 21.
Pending cases include open investigations, in-mediation investigations, monitoring resolution of cases to ensure agreement holdings, and complaints made by civil rights lawyers who have not taken action.
Not sure what will happen to the case and ongoing litigation. Six other regional offices are also closed: Dallas, Chicago, Cleveland, Boston, New York and Philadelphia. Four will remain open: Seattle, Denver, Kansas City and Washington, D.C.
“Now, the department has hundreds of employees than effective jobs. Those who file the claim will not get resolutions in a timely manner. Nationwide, “millions of students will now not enjoy Congress guaranteeing their civil rights protection.” ”
San Francisco office staff said about one-third of the work of the California office involves conducting inquiries or providing training – so that parents, students, teachers and administrators can understand their legal rights and pursue the choice of a case. Attorneys say issues about civil rights are usually raised by email or telephone, and their purpose is to resolve the issue without conducting an investigation or legal action.
Nevertheless, despite the last two decades, 50 Bay Area employees are still handling a continuous number of cases, despite a gradual decline of 25%.
Last week's layoffs were immediately challenged in court to serve illegal and harmful vitality. The government argues that students will not be shortened.
“The Office of Civil Rights will continue to investigate complaints and vigorously enforce federal civil rights laws,” said Madi Biedermann, deputy assistant secretary of communications at the Ministry of Education. She added that the layoff process will comply with federal rules and employee union contracts.
Newly confirmed Education Minister Linda McMahon also said he would perform essential and legally required responsibilities. She also defended President Trump's ever-evolving plan, demanding the closure of the Department of Education and transferring some of its functions elsewhere. “He pulled the bureaucracy from education so that more money could go to the United States,” McMahon said in a Fox News interview Tuesday night.
Internal narrative
The latest and current staff of the Civil Rights Office describe a chaotic action since the Trump administration’s control on January 20 – a case of discrimination has been frozen or ignored and has immediately shifted priority gradually.
They say this is common for new governments to suspend agency actions while putting new appointments and priorities in place. But in the past, including the former Trump administration, there were wise exceptions.
For example, when Biden took office, “Our standard disability cases were not frozen. Those that kept moving, right? They weren’t politicized, so they could keep moving forward.
Some exceptions can also be approved for a particularly vulnerable student or case that needs to be resolved quickly. During the government transition, staff can communicate with their families to remind them to delay or adjust the schedule.
The last weeksHowever, anxiety disorders stimulate anxiety when pending, lawyers say.
“In the past few weeks, we’ll receive emails from parents. They’ll say, “Are you still studying cases of my middle school students being harassed for their race” or “My kids don’t have special education accommodation? ” “There may be parents who say their children have suicidal thoughts. We cannot reply. ”
Most freezes were cancelled after McMahon Senate confirmation.
But on Friday the National Youth Law Center File a federal lawsuit Representing students and families across the country seeking to reverse the education sector’s “recent decision to effectively cease investigating civil rights complaints.”
“The abandonment of thousands of claims, despite the increase in bullying, harassment and discrimination in our schools is not only against the mission of the Ministry of Education, but also conveys a shocking message that schools do not need to promote a safe and welcoming environment for every student,” said Shakti Belway, executive director of Youth Law.
Several lawyers in the California office said many Southern California cases resolved during the Biden administration should be monitored but forgotten.
A department spokesperson tried to ease the focus, saying the office would be able to handle cases faster through a “quick resolution process” that allows some steps in the case to be accelerated or skipped.
Insiders say a quick settlement is nothing new – the department cannot force those involved in the case to agree to the issue. They say it works best in simple, simple situations.
Neal McCluskey, director of the Center for Educational Freedom at Kato College, said the workload needs to be checked.
“The Ministry of Education is almost certainly too big, and layoffs for layoffs may be prudent everywhere,” McLaugsky said. “We have also seen OCRs.” [the Office for Civil Rights] Past investigations have gone far beyond specific complaints to investigate the entire agency and unnecessarily expand the workload. It would be very surprising if there aren't many ways to improve OCR efficiency. ”
A San Francisco office attorney agreed. “In the past, we were told to have systemic problems with specific bullying, not with the entire school or district,” the lawyer said. “It's not that things can't be done better. But when we all go, they're worse.”
Transfer of priorities
The Trump administration highlighted new priorities, including a focus on anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism falls under the category of federal protection based on “common bloodlines.” Common bloodlines also include Islamophobia.
“In our office, even in the past two months, we have never felt the pressure to discriminate directly against another type of discrimination,” said a San Francisco attorney. “But it's clear what the priorities in Washington, D.C. are they will focus on anti-Semitism and ignore Arabs and Muslims. Protecting one group rather than another is not a fair and equal application of the law.”
Policy directives are not uncommon: Obama focuses on the rights of victims of sexual assault at colleges; Trump has made due process efforts to ensure that those accused of committing the attack. Biden makes LGBTQ+ students a group that must be discriminated against and get equal access; the current Trump administration wants to observe gender cases through only two genders’ lenses: men and women.
The rule-making process is long, resulting in a government that essentially had to enforce the rules of the previous administration – Trump's team seems ready to evade the process of his second term by issuing execution orders.
Trump's previous problems
Even before the new government took office, there was a serious backlog of cases. Some cases took years to conclude, including allegations of common ancestral discrimination involving the University of California that opened in 2022 and closed in December.
Instead of picking out the office of civil rights, Trump accused federal employees of not engaging in jobs without showing up.
“When I got there… I said, 'Well, we have to determine where the inflation is, where the bureaucracy is, let's get started,” McMahon said in an interview last week.
She added: “So many programs are really great” and layoffs are not harmful because “we want to make sure we keep all the right people, good people, to make sure the programs faced outside, grants, grants from Congress come from Congress, all of which are met and no one will get cracks.”
The negative characteristics of lawyers rejecting their jobs, saying their case volume has doubled and tripled over the past decade, especially as offices become more politicized on top and renamed offices, leading to more inquiries and claims.
Democrats also complained. When the office told the Los Angeles Unified School District, activists in Los Angeles were angry that its Black Student Achievement Program (the racial group with the lowest grades in the area) had to be open to all students. Federal lawyers told the district that there was no other option for the Supreme Court ruling recently ordered to end racial preferences.
Ken Marcus, who led the department’s Civil Rights Office during George W. Bush’s presidency, said during Trump’s first term that reduced staff could lead to fewer cases. Instead, the office may take positive and high-profile actions, such as the government's recent $400 million federal contract with Columbia University from multiple agencies on anti-Semitism charges. UCLA, UC Berkeley and USC are also conducting federal reviews of so-called anti-Semitism.
Additionally, “there is a possibility of increasing civil rights enforcement at the state level,” Marcus added.
However, a large number of cases show that states are unable or unwilling to enforce civil rights enforcement. Durham said most families cannot provide attorneys for such legal challenges either.
“It's a free resource that ensures that their student and family rights are protected,” she said. “Without these, they have few other options.”
