'It's a black hole': Civil rights office at Department of Education veers from original mission

Source: CNN Politics

PUBLISHED Dec 12, 2025, 5:00 AM ET


A little-known civil rights office in the Department of Education that helps resolve complaints from students across the country about discrimination and accommodating disabilities has been gutted by the Trump administration and is now facing a ballooning backlog, a workforce that’s in flux and an unclear mandate. Even those who work there say they wouldn’t trust the agency to help their own children.

“It’s a black hole – there’s no staffing, there’s no rhyme or reason to what they’re doing, and there’s not a mission to actually effectuate civil rights laws,” said a longtime lawyer in the office. At this point, the employee wouldn’t even turn to the office “if I had an issue with my student or with my kids.”

The Office for Civil Rights was established to help provide equal access to education for all students and to protect students from discrimination based on race, ethnicity, sex, age and disability status, by holding schools and colleges that receive federal funds accountable. Envisioned as an alternative to costly and time-consuming litigation, the office is seen as a place of last resort for many families when other avenues – negotiations with teachers, school leadership, school districts – have been exhausted.

However, more than a half-dozen attorneys who work in the office or have left this year say it’s been hamstrung during the Trump administration by cuts that eliminated nearly 80 percent of the staff and created a backlog of thousands of cases. The department is trying to recall some employees on leave, in part, to tackle the backlog. The sources, who spoke to CNN anonymously for fear of retaliation, also said the office has shifted from its original mission to prioritize fighting policies that promote DEI and allow transgender athletes to compete while focusing on investigations into antisemitism.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/12/politics/education-department-civil-rights-office-mission