LDF Condemns the U.S. Department of Education’s Latest Efforts to Dismantle Agency and Abandon Students’ Civil Rights

Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Education announced its latest efforts to dismantle the agency through interagency agreements that seek to transfer critical responsibilities, such as civil rights enforcement, to other federal agencies that are ill-equipped to meet the needs of students. The Trump administration plans to shift the Office for Civil Rights (OCR), Student Privacy Policy Office (SPPO), and Training and Advisory Services, which oversees Equity Assistance Centers (EACs), to the Department of Justice. The Administration also seeks to move oversight of the Office for Special Education and Rehabilitative Services to the Department of Health and Human Services. These other agencies lack the staffing, expertise, training, and resources necessary to take on these important responsibilities. As a result, next year, millions of Black students and other vulnerable children will attend public schools with weakened federal oversight and fewer civil rights protections.

These actions by the Trump Administration further advance its stated goal of circumventing Congressional authority by hollowing out the Department of Education and abandoning the federal government's longstanding responsibility to protect students. The Legal Defense Fund (LDF) strongly condemns these actions and calls on Congress to reject these regressive efforts to stifle and undermine students' civil rights.

LDF Senior Policy Counsel Hamida Labi issued the following statement:

"The Department of Education is directly responsible for ensuring that all students-including Black students, other students of color, students with disabilities, LGBTQ+ students, English learners, and other historically marginalized communities-can access educational opportunity equally, fairly, and safely. These four offices which protect students' civil rights, special education services, privacy, and equity assistance are vital to this mission. The transfer of OCR could delay or deny relief for thousands of students that have filed complaints of race-based discrimination in schools. We are especially concerned about moving EACs, which help to further school desegregation, to a Justice Department that is actively abandoning desegregation efforts across the South.

"LDF calls on Congress, education advocates, and community leaders to reject the Administration's efforts to weaken federal civil rights protections for students. LDF also implores states and school districts to strengthen civil rights protections for students. The federal government must uphold - not abandon - its responsibility to ensure that promise is fulfilled."

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Founded in 1940, the Legal Defense Fund (LDF) is the nation's first civil rights legal organization. LDF has been completely separate from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) since 1957, though it was founded under the leadership of Thurgood Marshall while he was at the NAACP. LDF's Thurgood Marshall Institute (TMI) is a division of LDF that undertakes innovative research and houses LDF's archive. In all media attributions, please refer to us as the Legal Defense Fund or LDF (do not include NAACP) and refer to the Institute as LDF's Thurgood Marshall Institute or TMI.