With DOE's Office for Civil Rights depleted, a lawsuit seeks to continue discrimination investigations in schools

PHILADELPHIA — With its workforce slashed and most of its regional offices — including one in Philadelphia — now shuttered, the U.S. Education Department's Office for Civil Rights has effectively halted investigating issues of sex-, race-, and disability-based discrimination, according to a newly filed lawsuit.

The lawsuit, filed Friday by the National Center for Youth Law and the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates on behalf of two parents with pending civil rights investigations, seeks to force the Department of Education to continue investigations and provide updates to a judge about its progress.

"Without even minimally adequate staffing, OCR cannot fulfill its mandate and move complaint investigation and processing forward," states the suit, filed in federal court in Washington, D.C. "OCR has abdicated its responsibility to enforce civil rights protections, leaving students who should be able to trust and rely on their government to protect and defend their rights to instead endure discriminatory and unsafe learning environments without recourse."

Though the parents listed as plaintiffs in the lawsuit are not from the Philadelphia area, the OCR cuts have also worried parents locally. Eric Lowry, a father in the Lower Merion School District who has previously filed complaints alleging that Lower Merion discriminated against his daughter based on her disability, views OCR as a needed avenue for parents seeking accountability from school systems.

"Now that safety net is pretty well gone," said Lowry, whose 2022 claim was resolved after Lower Merion agreed to make policy changes. His claims included the district's failure to provide nursing support during an extracurricular activity.

'Changes are being made'

The action comes after Linda McMahon, President Donald Trump's education secretary, laid off about half the Department of Education's workforce and closed seven of 12 regional OCR offices nationwide, including the Philadelphia office, which investigated complaints in Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Maryland, West Virginia, and Delaware.

Trump has promised to abolish the education department, saying he wants states and parents to have more say-so. McMahon has characterized the cuts as part of the department's "final mission."

But an education department spokesperson last week dismissed the notion that civil rights investigations were going away.

"To better serve American students and families, changes are being made as to how OCR will conduct its operations," spokesperson Madi Biedermann said in a release. "OCR's staff is composed of top-performing personnel with years of experience enforcing federal civil rights laws. We are confident that the dedicated staff of OCR will deliver on its statutory responsibilities."

Department officials said they will conduct more mediation and a quicker "rapid resolution" process to handle claims and that "undue evidentiary burdens on both recipients and OCR staff" have been removed.

There are more than 12,000 open civil rights investigations, complaints lodged against elementary and secondary schools, colleges, and universities.

All investigations were paused shortly after Trump's inauguration; at first, just disability related claims were unfrozen.

"Even as OCR generally stopped investigating complaints from the public based on race or sex discrimination, it cherry-picked and, on its own initiative, began targeted investigations into purported discrimination against white and cisgender students, including through the establishment of an 'End DEI' (short for 'End Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion') portal to solicit information for use in potential investigations into programs designed to benefit transgender students and students of color," the suit filed Friday notes.

The lawyers for the plaintiffs called the Trump administration's move an "assault," and said it has happened "against a backdrop of explicit hostility towards students of color and LGBTQI+ students."

The changes are causing active harm, the suit said.

"OCR has abdicated its responsibility to enforce civil rights protections, leaving students who should be able to trust and rely on their government to protect and defend their rights to instead endure discriminatory and unsafe learning environments without recourse," it reads.

'Extremely alarming'

The closing of multiple OCR offices, including in Philadelphia, "will absolutely be harmful to all of our families across Pennsylvania that have turned to the Office of Civil Rights when they're facing discrimination in their schools that is not resolved by advocacy at the school level," said Kristina Moon, senior attorney with the Education Law Center-PA, a Philadelphia group that advocates for underserved students.

The law center represented parents in a 2023 complaint filed with the OCR, accusing the Pennridge School District of creating a hostile environment for Black and LGBTQ students.

Noting the OCR's pause on non-disability-related complaints, Moon said the office's charge was to investigate all possible violations of civil rights law, not just based on disability.

"It was extremely alarming that they're suggesting to abandon any of these areas of discrimination," she said.

The law center often advises families calling its tip line that they can file OCR complaints, Moon said. Unlike in standard court proceedings, the office's investigators and attorneys specialize in civil rights education law and "really have been committed to systemic resolution agreements," rather than resolving only a particular student's issue, Moon said.

Moon noted that families can also file complaints with the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, which investigates discrimination based on race, sex, and disability, among other areas.

Even before the OCR cuts, Maria Vetter, an attorney in Newtown Square and founder of an advocacy group that represents students with special needs, had been steering some families to file special education-related complaints with Pennsylvania's Bureau of Special Education rather than the federal office — anticipating that there could be changes under Trump.

While Vetter supports the goals of advocates trying to "systematically fight" the OCR cuts by continuing to file complaints, "I do worry about the individual families going through all this crisis" and delays in waiting for results from a weakened federal office, she said.

Vetter also noted the expertise of the laid-off OCR staff — a former employee said there had been about 30 people working in the Philadelphia office — and said some of those lawyers may be hired by education law firms. If that happens, it could be hard for OCR to rehire people with the same level of experience if the lawsuit succeeds in reversing the cuts, Vetter said.