Victim Rights Law Center vs. U.S. Department of Education
What’s at stake: Whether the Department of Education can protect students’ civil rights.
Summary: Public Justice is suing to stop the Trump Administration’s efforts to gut the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. Just weeks after President Trump assumed office, the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) stopped nearly all investigations into civil rights complaints. Instead, the administration pursued only select cases on Trump’s agenda, namely excluding transgender students from school restrooms and sports teams and ending diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. Then in early March, Education Secretary Linda McMahon decimated the department’s workforce, firing half of OCR’s staff and closing seven out of its twelve regional offices. This decision closes a major path for students and families to seek relief from discrimination and harassment in schools and will stall thousands of pending investigations, according to current and former OCR employees who have already submitted statements in court.
On April 21, 2025, Public Justice and its co-counsel filed a lawsuit in federal court to challenge this decision. We represent families with pending OCR complaints and the Victim Rights Law Center, a Boston-based organization that provides civil legal services to sexual assault survivors. We seek to restore OCR so that it can continue to serve students, families, and school communities.
Update: On June 18, 2025, the district court granted our request for a preliminary injunction, which required the government to restore OCR’s staff. On September 29, however, the First Circuit stayed that order based on an intervening Supreme Court decision. The First Circuit’s ruling pauses the injunction while the case moves forward. But in doing so, the court made clear we can still prevail at the end of the case. It reaffirmed that Congress created OCR “to serve a key role in furthering equal access to public education in the United States by ensuring the implementation of federal legislation like the Civil Rights Act as well as the promise of Brown v. Board of Education” and highlighted the district court’s “careful analysis” finding that the government’s actions have “imperiled” that mandate.
Core legal question: The lawsuit challenges the reduction in force and office closures under the Administrative Procedure Act, arguing those actions are arbitrary and capricious because the Department failed to explain them, failed to consider their effects on the students who need relief from OCR, and made the decision for an improper reason—as part of the effort to close the Department of Education.