Senators Jon Ossoff (D-GA) and Raphael Warnock (D-GA) are demanding answers from the Trump Administration after reports that the Administration plans to end civil rights enforcement within the Department of Education.
How does the Administration plan to end this enforcement? According to reports, the Trump Administration intends to outsource responsibilities of the Department of Education’s civil rights division to the Department of Justice (DOJ).
This transfer of responsibility may leave several questions unanswered about the status of pending cases of potential civil rights abuses.
What Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock had to say in their letter:
- “We write with serious concerns regarding the Department of Education’s potential dereliction of its duty to ensure children in Georgia receive a quality education free from discrimination. Despite this responsibility, the Trump Administration has chosen to fire Department of Education staff and enter into interagency agreements to outsource the agency’s formal duties.
- “We have heard from constituents who have been harmed by these actions, and we are concerned this Department will continue to harm Georgia students. We demand that further action to dismantle the Department of Education be stopped and that you provide responses to this letter no later than July 31, 2026.
- “There are currently 584 pending cases in Georgia before the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), which is responsible for enforcing federal civil rights laws that protect students from discrimination in schools, colleges, and universities across the country.
- “For Georgia families, these are not just abstract figures – these are students waiting for answers to cases involving disability discrimination, harassment, unequal treatment and access to education.”
Further Context: Under the new agreements between the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and the DOJ, the Justice Department will take on civil rights enforcement, which includes “complaint investigation” and “resolution processes.”
This announcement follows severe layoffs at the OCR last year, when the Education Department closed seven OCR offices. This impacted nearly 60,000 public schools and over 30 million K-12 students.
