Parents of students with disabilities have long seen federal civil rights complaints as their last, best hope of ensuring schools meet their legal obligations to address their children’s needs. Changes and staff reductions at the U.S. Department of Education have eroded trust in that process, advocates said.
Their message to those parents: File the complaints anyway.
“Families feel like, ‘If it’s going to take a long time to get a resolution, what is the point?’” said Robyn Linscott, the director of education and family policy for The Arc of the United States, an organization that advocates for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
But if families stop reporting concerns and numbers of complaints drop, “it feeds into a narrative that we don’t need as many people [working in the Education Department’s office for civil rights] because everything is fine,” Linscott said.
It’s a message civil rights organizations and parent advocacy groups have repeatedly stressed as they push for greater congressional oversight of dramatic staff reductions at the Education Department, which President Donald Trump has pledged to abolish. Those changes have hit the office for civil rights especially hard.
The advocates’ efforts coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the nation’s primary special education law. The IDEA requires schools to provide a free and adequate public education by making individualized education programs, or IEPs, to support the needs of students with disabilities and ensure they are educated in the least restrictive environment possible.
“Families are very confused. They’re very scared,” said Carrie Gillespie, the project director of early development and disability at New America, a left-leaning think tank. “There’s confusion about whether this is still the law of the land. It is.”
Federal investigators play a key role in disability rights enforcement
Enforcement springs from mandates in IDEA that schools sometimes fall short of, by disproportionately disciplining students with disabilities, for example; unfairly segregating them from their general education peers; and failing to evaluate their needs in a timely manner, advocates say.
Under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, schools are also required to make “reasonable accommodations” for students with disabilities.
When efforts to resolve such concerns on the state and local levels fail, families can file federal complaints to the office for civil rights. About 33% of the 25,000 complaints OCR received in 2024 were related to disability rights, the agency said in a report to Congress.
But changes to that office—and concerns about more to come—have left parents vulnerable to misinformation and fear, Linscott said.
There’s confusion about whether [IDEA] is still the law of the land. It is.
Carrie Gillespie, project director of early development and disability, New America
As she seeks to rapidly downsize the agency she leads, U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon has closed seven of 12 regional offices operated by the office for civil rights. During the fall government shutdown, the agency attempted to terminate 137 OCR employees through a reduction in force. A bill Congress passed to reopen the government reversed those layoffs (which a court had already put on hold) through the end of January.
If they eventually go through, the office will have lost about 70% of the staff it had when Trump took office in January. Families, meanwhile, have reported stalled responses to their complaints, and school districts contend they can’t get answers to questions about ongoing investigations from the office.
The Trump administration defended its changes.
“During the last Administration, OCR failed American students due to misguided priorities and persistent mismanagement,” Julie Hartman, the press secretary for legal affairs at the Education Department, wrote in a statement Friday. “The Trump Administration has reoriented enforcement to protect students and families, and it is now working to reform a broken federal bureaucracy. OCR will continue to meet its statutory responsibilities while driving to improve efficiency and resolve the longstanding backlog.”
Advocates concerned about the future of civil rights office
More changes may still be on the horizon.
On Nov. 18, the Education Department announced plans to offload the duties of many of its offices to other federal agencies. Those offices include elementary and secondary education, which will see core responsibilities such as administering Title I and other key funding streams shift to the U.S. Department of Labor under an interagency agreement made without congressional approval.
The reorganization did not include the office of special education and rehabilitative services or OCR, but Education Department officials said plans to move those offices are still under consideration. Project 2025, the conservative policy document that foretold many of the Trump administration’s most dramatic changes, recommends moving OCR to the U.S. Department of Justice.
If such a shift occurs, it is unclear if current staff will be retained, bringing their institutional knowledge with them, Gillespie said.
Even as they organize larger campaigns to raise concerns with Congress and federal officials, advocacy groups like the Council of Exceptional Children have included messages directly to the families most affected by those decisions.
“We do not want parents/advocates to avoid filing complaints due to OCR layoffs,” the organization said in a recent parent toolkit. “We must be vigilant in filing if/when discrimination occurs.”
