Sourcing/perspectives note for the editor: The piece draws from government data analyses (ProPublica), advocacy monitoring (Democracy Forward, HRW), mainstream reporting (Bloomberg, WaPo, AP), and administration statements via official releases and secondary coverage. It presents the administration's emphasis on intentional discrimination and equal treatment alongside critics' concerns about reduced enforcement for historically marginalized groups.
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights opened fewer than 370 new investigations into racial discrimination complaints between Inauguration Day 2025 and July 2026, despite receiving about 5,000 such complaints during that period. This represents a steep decline from prior years, when the office launched hundreds more investigations monthly on average.
Data obtained through a ProPublica lawsuit shows the office started an average of about 100 new investigations of all types per month in the first 18 months of the Trump administration’s return, down from 310 per month in 2024 under the prior administration. Racial discrimination cases formed only a small share of the new work. Of the racial investigations opened, roughly 11 percent involved allegations of discrimination against white students.
A related report from this publication examined the two-thirds reduction in racial discrimination investigations specifically.
Staffing Cuts and Operational Changes
The drop followed major staffing reductions at the Office for Civil Rights. In March 2025, the Education Department cut about 1,300 employees in one day, including 299 from the civil rights office, more than half its staff. Seven of 12 regional offices closed without notice or case transfers. The office reached just 112 resolution agreements across all of 2025 on a budget comparable to the previous year, when it completed far more.
Critics, including former office leaders and advocacy groups, have attributed the slowdown to these cuts and a directive to dismiss complaints more readily. The administration has said it inherited a large backlog and is refocusing enforcement on intentional discrimination rather than statistical disparities.
Broader Shifts at the Justice Department
Parallel changes occurred at the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. Analyses by Democracy Forward’s Red Line for Civil Rights project found that since January 2025, the division shut down, withdrew from, or sought to end more than 36 cases addressing discrimination against Black, Latino, and Native American people. These included challenges to hiring tests, redlining settlements, and voting rights matters. The division also moved to dismiss more than 50 longstanding school desegregation cases, with details on 56 districts identified through independent tracking.
A Bloomberg Law review of division announcements showed a 51 percent reduction in new criminal civil rights charge announcements in the first 20 months of the second Trump term compared with the start of the Biden administration. New cases involving law enforcement misconduct fell 75 percent in the same window.
Policy Changes on Disparate Impact
The administration has also altered legal standards. In December 2025, the Justice Department issued a final rule eliminating disparate-impact liability from its Title VI regulations, requiring proof of intentional discrimination instead of statistical disparities. The Education Department took similar steps, rescinding regulations that allowed schools to assess potential discrimination through outcome comparisons across racial groups.
Administration officials, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, have described these moves as restoring equal treatment under the law and ending practices that amounted to racial preferences. The White House has highlighted executive orders targeting what it calls illegal DEI practices by federal contractors and in education.
Perspectives from Affected Communities and Advocates
Advocacy organizations and former career officials argue the changes have left complaints from students and families of color unaddressed. Human Rights Watch documented cases where investigations into racial harassment in schools stalled after regional office closures, leaving families without resolution. Groups such as the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law have criticized the withdrawal from desegregation oversight, noting that some districts saw renewed disparities after supervision ended.
Data from multiple outlets, including the Associated Press and The Washington Post, show the administration has prioritized investigations into alleged discrimination against white and Asian applicants in higher education admissions and into programs framed as DEI initiatives.
Scale of Complaints and Case Outcomes
Even with fewer investigations, the office logged more than 24,000 new complaints through May 2026. Nearly 17,000 cases were closed, the vast majority by dismissal without investigation. Fewer than 700 cases opened under the current administration resulted in findings of wrongdoing.
The majority of the office’s caseload has historically involved disability discrimination, but racial and sex discrimination complaints have also declined in investigation rates. Sexual violence complaints, for example, saw only 29 investigations opened despite more than 200 filed.
These developments occur against a backdrop of ongoing complaints about school discipline disparities, access to advanced courses, and harassment. Whether the reduced federal role will be filled by state agencies, private litigation, or other mechanisms remains an open question for affected students and families.
