The Justice Department is supposed to enforce the court orders that desegregated America's schools. Under Trump, it is walking away from them.
Two reports released October 22 by the Red Line for Civil Rights project, run by the legal group Democracy Forward, add up what the department has dropped:
- School desegregation: In 56 school districts across 12 states, the Trump DOJ has moved to end a desegregation case, withdrawn from one, or chosen not to oppose ending one, according to the desegregation tracker.
- Race discrimination: Since January 2025, DOJ has walked away from at least 36 race discrimination cases — Voting Rights Act lawsuits, police investigations that found discrimination, bank redlining settlements and firefighter hiring cases, according to the second report.
Common Dreams reported on the findings.
"Did not show its work"
On September 24, the department announced it was ending more than 50 school desegregation cases. Harmeet Dhillon, the Trump appointee who runs the Civil Rights Division, called them "onerous and outdated consent decrees" and framed the move as "ending prolonged federal oversight of these school districts."
The usual way a desegregation case ends is that a judge looks at the evidence and finds the district has actually fixed the problem. Red Line found the Trump DOJ often skipped that step. Here is how it says DOJ got out of the cases:
- In at least 18 districts, DOJ joined agreements to dismiss the case without asking the court to find the district had desegregated at all.
- In at least 29 districts, DOJ joined motions to end the case — some with only thin evidence, others with the kind of evidence typical in these cases.
- In at least 2, DOJ filed its own motion to dismiss.
- In at least 3, DOJ withdrew, and private plaintiffs are left to carry the case on their own.
DOJ "did not show its work," the report said. In DeSoto Parish, Louisiana, a desegregation case was dismissed on January 5, 2026, without a hearing.
"Walking away from them doesn't mean the discrimination has been addressed. It just means DOJ is no longer watching," said Megan Marks, a former DOJ official who is now the project's deputy director.
Shaheena Simons, who used to oversee DOJ's desegregation cases and now works at the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, called the department's "haste to end these cases without deliberation or transparency" a "betrayal of Black students," Common Dreams reported.
Settlements already won, thrown away
The race-discrimination report shows DOJ didn't just stop new investigations — it dropped cases where the government had already won relief for victims.
In United States v. Cobb County, Georgia, DOJ had alleged that credit checks and a written exam unfairly screened out Black firefighter applicants. The county agreed to a settlement that included $750,000 in back pay. DOJ dismissed the case on then-Attorney General Pam Bondi's February 26, 2025, order — according to the report, before the settlement took effect.
The list also includes a 2024 order against a Memphis bank over redlining in Black and Hispanic neighborhoods, and DOJ's finding that Minneapolis police discriminated against Black and Native American residents.
In some of these cases, the report notes, courts have refused to let DOJ walk away.
What the reports found
Trump's Justice Department has moved to end or stopped defending desegregation cases in 56 school districts in 12 states, including at least 18 where it agreed to dismissal without asking a judge to find the district had desegregated. It has also walked away from at least 36 race discrimination cases since January 2025, including a Cobb County, Georgia, firefighter case it dropped before a settlement with $750,000 in back pay took effect.
