AT A GLANCE
• The Education Department resolved about 30 percent fewer discrimination complaints in 2025 than it did the year before.
• The slowdown came as a record number of students sought federal help over claims of discrimination, bias and harassment in schools.
• Roughly 20,000 students are still waiting for updates on their civil rights complaints.
• The Trump administration says the delay is tied to a Biden era backlog, a government shutdown and restructuring, while Democrats argue staff cuts have weakened civil rights enforcement.
Education Department Resolved 30 Percent Fewer Discrimination Complaints In 2025, Data Shows
The Education Department resolved roughly 30 percent fewer discrimination complaints in American schools in 2025 compared with the previous year, marking the sharpest year to year decline in more than three decades, according to government data obtained by The New York Times.
The slowdown came even as a record number of students turned to the federal government for help with claims of prejudice, bias and discrimination in schools. According to the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, about 20,000 students are still waiting for updates on the status of their complaints.
The drop has drawn new attention to whether the Trump administration’s overhaul of civil rights enforcement inside the Education Department has affected the government’s ability to enforce anti discrimination laws in schools.
Trump Administration Points To Backlog And Shutdown
Education Department officials blamed the slowdown in part on a large backlog of unresolved cases left by the Biden administration. Officials also said efforts to clear those cases were slowed by a 43 day government shutdown.
Education Secretary Linda McMahon is expected to face questions before a Senate appropriations subcommittee that oversees the department’s budget. The White House has proposed cutting the Office for Civil Rights budget by 35 percent next year and reducing staff from 530 workers to 271.
McMahon has said a smaller and more efficient staff can still meet the department’s legal duties.
Civil Rights Office Restructured Under New Leadership
The Office for Civil Rights has recently been restructured under Kimberly M. Richey, the department’s assistant secretary for civil rights.
A senior Education Department official said the changes are meant to make the office more efficient by creating investigative teams focused specifically on disability based and race based complaints. The office previously relied more heavily on a regional approach.
The administration says the changes are intended to improve case handling. Democrats and civil rights advocates say the changes come as students are filing more complaints and waiting longer for federal action.
Fewest Anti Discrimination Settlements Since Online Records Began
A report from the office of Senator Bernie Sanders found that the civil rights office negotiated the fewest anti discrimination settlement agreements with schools in 2025 since the Education Department began posting those agreements online in 2014.
Those agreements are legally binding and usually come after extensive investigations. They outline the steps schools must take to address civil rights violations and avoid possible cuts to federal funding.
According to the report, the Trump administration secured 112 resolution agreements in 2025. During Trump’s first term, the office averaged 818 agreements per year.
At the start of 2025, about 12,000 cases were pending in the Office for Civil Rights. The report found that the 112 agreements provided enforceable relief to students in less than 1 percent of investigations. In 15 states, no resolution agreements were reached last year.
Sanders Says Students Are Being Left Without Recourse
Earlier this month, the Education Department’s civil rights office canceled six resolution agreements negotiated by previous administrations, a move Democratic and Republican lawyers described as without precedent.
Sanders said the findings show the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the Education Department have hurt students and families.
“When a child with a disability is denied the education they are entitled to, when a student faces racial or sexual harassment — they turn to the Office for Civil Rights for help,” Sanders said. “Yet the Trump administration has decimated this office. As a result, tens of thousands of students facing discrimination have been left with no recourse. That is beyond unacceptable.”
Education Department Defends Its Approach
Amelia Joy, a spokeswoman for the Education Department, said the Office for Civil Rights is no longer focused on “pandering to an extreme ideology.”
“The prior administration failed our students, but we are utilizing every tool at our disposal to resolve the backlog and return common sense to our schools,” Joy said.
A senior Education Department official said the Biden administration left nearly 20,000 civil rights complaints unresolved, compared with 4,200 cases left by the first Trump administration, according to the Office for Civil Rights’ 2020 annual report.
The official said it is unfair to compare the first year of one administration with the final year of another because priorities often change with leadership.
Staff Cuts Remain Central To The Debate
Democrats argue that staff cuts have played a major role in the decline. From March to December last year, about a quarter of the civil rights office’s $140 million budget was paid to investigators while they were barred from working because of lawsuits challenging the firings, according to a Government Accountability Office report.
The Office for Civil Rights has long been one of the federal government’s strongest tools for enforcing equal educational opportunity. The office investigates discrimination based on age, color, disability, national origin, race and sex at schools, colleges and other institutions that receive federal funding.
Over the past decade, about half of discrimination complaints have been filed on behalf of students with disabilities. Complaints involving race, national origin and sex account for much of the rest.
The decline in resolved cases comes as the Trump administration has shifted federal investigative priorities toward allegations of anti white discrimination in schools and efforts to remove protections for transgender students.
“We absolutely are fulfilling all of our statutory requirements — have not failed to do any of those,” McMahon told senators in June. “Not only are we reducing the backload, but we are keeping up with what’s coming in now with a reduced staff because we’re doing it efficiently.”
