Families and victim advocates file lawsuit against U.S. Department of Education for gutting Office for Civil Rights
Families and victim rights advocates Victim Rights Law Center and other individuals, represented by Public Justice and pro bono co-counsel, have filed a lawsuit to challenge the Trump Administration’s decision to undermine the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (“OCR”) by imposing a massive reduction in force that cut half of the OCR’s staff and closed half its regional offices. The move closed 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.
The lawsuit challenges the reduction in force and office closures under a federal law called the Administrative Procedure Act, arguing those actions are arbitrary and capricious because the Department failed to consider their effects on the students who need relief from OCR, among other reasons.
“Families across the country look to OCR because they face real harm in school, such as sexual assault and abuse based on their race or disabilities, and can’t get help in their state,” said Sean Ouellette, Senior Attorney at Public Justice and counsel for the plaintiffs. “Gutting OCR leaves those families with nowhere else to turn.”
Public Justice’s legal challenge represents Victim Rights Law Center, a Boston-based organization that provides civil legal services to sexual assault survivors, including both K-12 and higher education students. Also represented are Karen and Glenn Josefosky, who are homeschooling their son because of life-threatening harassment he experienced based on a severe food allergy. The Josefosky family had a pending disability discrimination complaint in OCR’s Cleveland office.
In addition, plaintiff Tara Blunt has a pending Title VI complaint in the Kansas City office based on the repeated racial harassment that forced her son out of public school. However, the Boston and Cleveland offices closed, and Kansas City is overwhelmed with cases it absorbed from the shuttered Dallas office. Because of the reduction in force, unless the court intervenes, OCR is unlikely to resolve our clients’ complaints any time soon.
“OCR is a vital resource for student-survivors of sexual assault whose schools have failed to protect their safety or educational access,” said Amanda Walsh at Victim Rights Law Center. “Dismantling this office strips students of one of their last avenues for justice.”
“This case responds to an urgent threat to the rights of school-age children whose ability to receive an education has been stymied by discrimination,” said Reid Skibell of Glenn Agre Bergman & Fuentes LLP, co-counsel for the plaintiffs. “The system that Congress established to protect these children has been destroyed almost overnight. Keeping that system in place is required by law, and restoring it is the goal of this litigation.”
The complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief was filed on April 21, 2025 in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
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