The Education Department is handing off oversight of special education and civil rights enforcement to other federal agencies, moving the administration closer to fulfilling President Donald Trump’s pledge to shut down the department. Justice will handle civil
For many families. the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights has functioned as a last stop when schools or colleges fail to fix discrimination. But as the federal government reshuffles responsibility. that last stop is moving—potentially leaving parents to navigate new paperwork and new systems.
In a set of changes carried out this week. the Education Department is handing off two of its most important functions: oversight of special education and civil rights enforcement. The administration is describing the moves as a federal partnership meant to reduce bureaucracy. and says the Education Department has effectively offloaded the vast majority of its duties.
Dissolving the Education Department entirely would require an act of Congress. Still, the new transfers bring the administration significantly closer to President Donald Trump’s pledge to shut down the department, a promise he has framed as giving education “back to the states.”
Under the plan the administration is publicizing, the Justice Department will handle civil rights enforcement in schools, while the Department of Health and Human Services will oversee special education. Justice will also manage work involving student privacy protections.
The changes matter because OCR has long been the doorway families use when discrimination claims don’t get resolved locally. The Office for Civil Rights investigates complaints filed by students. parents. and advocacy groups alleging civil rights violations at schools. colleges. and universities that receive federal money. It can also initiate investigations on its own.
After an investigation, the department may require a school to fix the problem. Schools that refuse risk losing federal funds.
OCR has handled complaints involving discrimination based on race, sex, religion, and disability status. One complaint can argue unequal treatment of girls and boys in sports; another might claim a school mishandled sexual assault allegations. The office also has taken on claims that schools discipline students of one race more harshly than another.
During the Trump administration. the Office for Civil Rights has been used to push schools to comply with the administration’s views on diversity. equity and inclusion. Some schools and colleges have closed DEI offices and abandoned efforts to close achievement gaps between white students and their Black and Latino peers. The office has also enforced the administration’s efforts to push transgender athletes out of sports.
Special education has its own high-stakes footprint. Through the Education Department’s special education office. states are expected to comply with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. a law that guarantees access to education for disabled students. The office also supports special vocational programs and career counseling for young people with disabilities.
In staffing terms, the special education office once employed around 200 people and now employs about 121.
The overhaul is coming after earlier steps aimed at dismantling the department’s workforce. Last March, shortly after the confirmation of Education Secretary Linda McMahon, the administration enacted major reductions in the Education Department workforce, cutting its staff roughly in half.
Since then, the department has been handing off various operations—including massive grant programs—through a series of interagency agreements. Work already reassigned includes Title I funding for schools serving low-income communities. along with smaller funding pools for teacher training. English instruction. and a college-access program known as TRIO. Those programs are now at the Labor Department.
The federal student loan portfolio is being handed over to the Treasury Department in phases. The Department of Health and Human Services also took grant programs related to safety, community engagement, and parents attending college, plus foreign medical school accreditation.
Foreign language programs and a portal that tracks foreign gifts to universities have gone to the State Department. Native American education is now overseen by the Interior Department.
For what remains inside the Education Department, the picture is narrower. Many transfers have kept the department nominally responsible for oversight and policy while shifting everyday operations to other agencies. Still. the department’s biggest functions are effectively reassigned. leaving what one description characterizes as a skeleton of what it once was.
The functions still at the department include research arms—though they have been heavily downsized. The Institute of Education Sciences evaluates and collects statistics, and the National Center for Education Statistics administers the Nation’s Report Card and other federal tests.
The Office of the Education Secretary remains intact, including her staff executing agreements with other agencies. The department is also working to approve requests for waivers that give states more flexibility for spending federal money. And while day-to-day operations have been transferred, legal oversight of major grants remains with the department.
The administration says families won’t lose access to enforcement. A Trump administration fact sheet promises that “This partnership will not impact students. parents or families who believe they have experienced discrimination. Anyone who believes discrimination has occurred in an education program or activity may file a complaint with ED-OCR” — referring to the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights.
Advocates argue the practical reality could be harder. They worry that moving key functions to other agencies could complicate enforcement of disability and civil rights. They point to the current setup where. for example. if a student with a disability is denied school accommodations. parents can often appeal to a single federal agency—the Education Department—to handle the violation. Now, they say, parents might have to navigate multiple bureaucratic systems to get answers.
With special education work transferred to Health and Human Services, advocates also fear the federal approach to disability could shift. They say the issue may be viewed through a medical lens rather than in terms of educational needs.
“When that mindset drives education decisions. students are more likely to be segregated. underestimated or treated as separate from the school community. ” Robyn Linscott. who directs education policy at The Arc of the United States. a major disability rights group. said. In a medical model, “disability is treated as a diagnosis to manage instead of a natural part of human life.”.
Even the details are still settling. It’s possible a group could file a lawsuit or amend existing lawsuits to stop the changes, at least temporarily. What is unclear is what happens to staff at the Office for Civil Rights or those who oversee special education. and how responsibilities will be divided—especially between the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights and the Justice Department.
Those questions come with a backdrop of strain inside OCR itself. A backlog has built over time, starting before Trump took office but growing during his presidency. In April, a report from Sen. Bernie Sanders found the Office for Civil Rights had reached zero resolution agreements since March 2025 over sexual harassment. sexual violence. seclusion and restraint. racial harassment. or discriminatory school discipline. The report also found more than 2,700 pending cases in those categories.
It is a shift that officials are calling a partnership designed to streamline federal authority. For families who have relied on OCR as a backstop. the change lands with a sharper edge: the fear that enforcing rights could become slower. harder. and more fragmented at the very moment school disputes are already emotionally and logistically exhausting.
Education Department special education civil rights Office for Civil Rights Justice Department Health and Human Services Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Title I TRIO student privacy Linda McMahon