A gutted Education Department’s new agenda: Roll back civil rights, target transgender students

This story was originally published by ProPublica In California the federal establishment was deep into an analysis of alleged racial discrimination at a school district where a parent disclosed students called a Black peer racial slurs and played whipping sounds from their cellphones during a lesson about slavery Then the U S Department of Teaching in March suddenly closed the California regional outpost of its Office for Civil Rights and fired all its employees there That inquiry and others went silent In South Dakota the OCR abruptly terminated its work with a school district that had agreed to take actions to end discrimination against its Native American students The same office that helped craft the agreement to treat Indigenous students equally made a stunning about-face and decided in March that helping Native American students would discriminate against white students During its first days as the Trump administration has dismantled the Learning Department one of its biggest targets has been the civil rights arm Now Schooling Secretary Linda McMahon is reorienting what s left of it Part of that shift has been ordering investigations related to the administration s priorities such as ending the participation of transgender girls and women in girls and women s sports After hearing that a transgender woman from Wagner College in New York competed in a women s fencing tournament at the University of Maryland last month the head of the OCR launched a special review into both schools and threatened their access to federal funding Through internal memos and occurrence evidence interviews with more than a dozen current agency attorneys and constituents records requests to school districts and other targets of investigations across the country ProPublica has documented how the Trump administration has radically reshaped the OCR Only investigations that unveiled a civil rights violation and led to change at a school or college were completed in March ProPublica learned Only were resolved by finding violations in April The Biden administration completed as plenty of as investigations a month Leadership under President Donald Trump also has made it easier for the OCR to drop discrimination complaints hastily In March of cases closed by the office were dismissed without an research and were dismissed outright in April according to internal incident figures obtained by ProPublica Typically of cases are dismissed because they don t meet criteria to warrant an inspection With more than half of the Guidance Department s civil rights offices closed and the division reduced to a fraction of its former staff families pleas for updates and action have gone unheard One OCR attorney who solicited not to be named for fear of retaliation described ProPublica that her caseload went from to as she absorbed cases previously handled by employees who worked in offices that had been closed Several remaining employees have not been able to access documents voicemail and email of fired employees As with civil rights divisions in other federal agencies that the Trump administration has fundamentally altered the OCR has worked for decades to uphold constitutional rights against discrimination based on disability race and gender OCR is the the majority useless it s ever been and it s the bulk dangerous it s ever been And by useless I mean unavailable Unable to do the work reported Michael Pillera who until lately was an OCR attorney in Washington D C He is now with the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law Reviewing cases that allege racism discrimination based on sexual orientation or mistreatment of students with disabilities now requires permission from Trump appointees according to a memo from OCR leadership As a product thousands of discrimination investigations are idled even ones that were nearing a resolution when Trump took office again I thought we were somewhere and now we are back to square one because they are closed reported K D the mother of the Black California learner who commented her daughter has been called racial epithets by her classmates She emailed the agency more than a month ago to try to get an update on the research but disclosed the agency has not responded ProPublica is identifying her by initials to protect her child s privacy I never would have imagined that something so essential would go away she commented Learning Department spokespeople did not respond to questions and requests for comment sent over several weeks about changes in the civil rights division The OCR attorney who declared she is working through cases disclosed the job is now impossible The people who remain are doing all they can We re doing all we can But it isn t enough and it keeps us up at night she revealed Another OCR attorney who like others sought not to be named for fear of retaliation reported the administration s new vision for civil rights enforcement has harmed families We were sort of the last bit of hope for them he revealed and now they re calling and emailing and saying Hey I thought you all were going to help me A shadow division The arduous grinding work undertaken by OCR attorneys is starkly different from the high-speed investigations that the Teaching Department announces in press releases every minimal days The OCR historically one of the executive s largest enforcers of the Civil Rights Act of has been known for being a neutral fact-finder Its investigators followed a process to determine whether complaints from the community met legal criteria for a civil rights claim then carried out investigations methodically The vast majority of investigations were based on discrimination complaints from students and families and a large share of those were related to disability discrimination The inquiries typically took months and in complex cases years The lengthy investigations sometimes were a source of criticism The agency didn t share details of the investigations until they were completed and the agreements often involved federal oversight going forward Investigations being publicized now have largely bypassed the agency s civil rights attorneys according to Learning Department employees McMahon and OCR head Craig Trainor created what amounts to a shadow division The Trump administration has ordered more than a dozen investigations in the past three months on its own not initiated by an outside complainant These directed investigations are typically rare there were none during President Joe Biden s administration The investigations have targeted schools with transgender athletes gender-neutral bathrooms and initiatives that the administration views as discriminatory to white students OCR attorneys notified ProPublica they ve been given prewritten letters which they ve reluctantly signed to send to targets of these investigations Various letters describe transgender girls as biological males which is ideologically pointed language that OCR attorneys say they ve never used before They re blowing through past precedents past practices best practices declared Catherine Lhamon who led OCR under former Presidents Barack Obama and Biden and departed the office in January And they re not even attempting to appear like neutral arbiters of the law In a first McMahon and Trainor created tactics to divert complaints and investigations away from the OCR s legal experts entirely The administration made an End DEI portal that bypasses the traditional online complaint system and seeks only grievances about diversity equity and inclusion in schools Unlike the regular complaint system the diversity portal submissions are not routed to OCR staff We have no idea where that portal goes who it goes to how they review the cases No idea commented the attorney who mentioned he struggles with being unable to help families That avoids us interfering with the games they re trying to play if they silo off the real civil rights lawyers McMahon then publicized a Title IX Special Investigations Organization last month to work with the Department of Justice and appointed Trainor to it It launches its own investigations into schools that include transgender girls in athletics In an internal memo to the new organization that was obtained by ProPublica Trainor defined the special crew s purpose To effectively and efficiently address the increasing volume of Title IX single-sex sports spaces cases expedite those investigations and resolutions and collaborate seamlessly with DOJ to conclude investigations that go to DOJ for enforcement There s no indication that more complaints related to transgender students are coming from the society according to internal event content Last month in what appears to be the first situation assigned to the Title IX company the group notified the University of Maryland and Wagner College that it would investigate each school The assessment began after Fox News and other media released about a fencing tournament at the University of Maryland in which a transgender participant from Wagner competed Trainor signed the notification letters himself a departure from Lhamon s practice A Wagner College spokesperson declined to comment A University of Maryland spokesperson declined to comment about the examination but revealed the tournament while on the university s campus was run by USA Fencing The community used to be able to see what the OCR was researching But an online database that is supposed to list all investigations underway hasn t been updated since Trump took office At that time about pending investigations were listed Among them were two related to a family s complaints that their California school district discriminated against students with disabilities including by barricading them inside what it called a reset room But then the OCR closed its California office and fired its employees All work came to a halt They stopped responding Nothing was being done to stop the practice and protect kids Genevieve Goldstone the parent of the Del Mar Union School District participant who filed the disability discrimination complaint disclosed in an interview My federal complaints were meant to protect more kids and stop the abuses in the district The district disclosed it could not comment on the pending review but declared it participated in more than a dozen interviews with an OCR attorney It also declared it conducted its own review of the assertions and determined they were unsubstantiated OCR attorneys say they have been repeatedly blindsided by citizens announcements about program changes and investigations To find out what Trainor and McMahon have launched on their behalf they check the Instruction Department s website daily for press releases Those statements sometimes quote Trainor preemptively saying a school appears to violate civil rights law The attorneys worry they will have no choice despite what their investigations uncover but to find against schools that have already been excoriated by the department publicly For example in a press release announcing an study into a transgender athlete participating in girls track and field in Portland Constituents Schools in Oregon Trainor disclosed We will not allow the Portland Population Schools District or any other educational entity that receives federal funds to trample on the antidiscrimination protections that women and girls are guaranteed under law A third current OCR attorney who urged not to be named for fear of losing her job commented the administration is misinterpreting civil rights law It s subverting our office or weaponizing it in these means without following our process she declared Conservative groups with complaints about diversity or transgender students have been able to file complaints directly with Trainor and get quick results another norm-breaking way to operate outside of the OCR s protocol America First Legal a group founded by Trump deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller that considers itself the answer to the ACLU emailed Trainor a scarce days after Trump s Ending Radical Indoctrination in K- Schooling executive order The order directs schools to stop teaching about or supporting diversity equity and gender identity AFL respectfully requests that the Department of Coaching open investigations into the following public-school districts in Northern Virginia for continuing violations of Title IX the letter read listing five districts that have policies welcoming to transgender students Senior leadership in Washington opened the cases the following week America First issued a press release headlined PREEMINENCE The group declined to comment further Backtracking on civil rights Remaking the OCR isn t just about increasing caseloads and reordering political priorities The Trump administration now is taking actions to roll back OCR s previous civil rights work Last month Trump issued an executive order that directs all federal agencies including the Learning Department to stop enforcing cases involving policies that disproportionately affect certain groups for example when Black students are disciplined more harshly than white students for the same infractions or when students with disabilities are suspended more than any other group even though they represent a small percentage of learner enrollment Trump s order requires the agencies to assess all pending investigations lawsuits and consent judgements that consider disproportionate discipline and take appropriate action Complaints made to the OCR that students were unfairly disciplined could be thrown out existing enforcement actions or monitoring of schools that had disciplined students disproportionately could be revoked The OCR under Trainor did this in Rapid City South Dakota even before the executive order About a year ago the office had signed an agreement with Rapid City Area Schools after an inspection unveiled that the district s Native American students were disciplined far more harshly than white ones They also were kept from enrolling in advanced courses The OCR commented that when speaking with an investigator the superintendent of schools at the time announced that Native American students in her district had higher truancy rates because they operated on what she termed Indian Time She revealed too that they don t value learning according to the inquiry s findings The former superintendent Nicole Swigart denied saying any of that I recognize those comments are horrendous Swigart mentioned in an interview with ProPublica She noted that the OCR research was opened in and that she first spoke to an investigator in I m not lying when I say I didn t say it I didn t say it and I don t know where it came from In the agreement with the OCR the district promised to examine its practices and make things right the OCR would monitor its progress The district also brought in a new superintendent But last month the OCR abruptly terminated that agreement based on its differing interpretation of civil rights law The OCR s new view is that equity and diversity efforts discriminate against white students It was in the view of agency attorneys the bulk severe breach of the OCR s mission and methods to date There was no constituents announcement Native students in Rapid City just lost a layer of protection the Lakota People s Law Project released on Facebook Native students are still being pushed out of classrooms and denied opportunities Darren Thompson who is Ojibwe commented the OCR s decision to abandon the agreement was another cycle of the federal administration failing to uphold its promises And this time they are partisan political mentioned Thompson who works for the nonprofit Sacred Defense Fund affiliated with the Lakota group in Rapid City In response to questions from ProPublica the school district commented it has completed much of the work including broader access to educational opportunities and an improved behavior tracking process and plans to continue it even without federal oversight But it also reported this week that under the OCR s new directives we must shift our approach The district did not elaborate on what will change It s unclear whether the OCR has ended agreements with other districts or colleges Instruction Department spokespeople did not respond to questions from ProPublica Pushing back Selected subjects of the OCR s new directives and investigations have capitulated A school district in Tumwater Washington that Trainor targeted for allowing a transgender basketball contestant from an opposing unit to compete responded by voting to assistance the state athletic association excluding trans players altogether But selected are pushing back Denver Population Schools was the first target of one of Trainor s directed investigations in late January over the existence of one all-gender multistall bathroom on one floor of a Denver high school According to communication obtained by ProPublica through community records requests the district called out the OCR for continuing to take a different approach with this event without explanation a occurrence with no complainant who is awaiting any form of relief or remedy Kristin Bailey a Denver General Schools attorney wrote to an OCR supervisor that the way the assessment is being handled appears to be retaliatory Since February at least half a dozen lawsuits have been filed to try to stop the dismantling of the Coaching Department and its civil rights functions among them suits by Democratic state attorneys general and from the National Mentoring Association and American Federation of Teachers A modern suit by the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates on behalf of children and their parents all of whom have pending complaints alleging discrimination asserts they re suffering from the OCR s abandonment of its core mission The NAACP also sued the department McMahon and Trainor citing the End DEI portal and seeking a halt to such anti-diversity efforts And the Victim Rights Law Center representing students and parents sued to try to restore what has been cut from the OCR so the agency can fulfill its mandate It noted that under McMahon and Trainor cherry-picked investigations appear to be the only matters the Department is now pursuing Those lawsuits are pending The governing body has argued in the NAACP lawsuit that the group lacks standing and in the other it has not filed a response Several OCR attorneys described ProPublica that they hope these groups and school districts continue to push back In the meantime they commented they will continue to try to work on behalf of the populace to uphold the nation s civil rights laws I have to keep putting one foot in front of the other helping the people I can help and keep my eye on the long event stated a fourth OCR attorney Hopefully we re still here and can help rebuild in the future ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power Sign up for 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