When a student is sexually assaulted and their school doesn't handle it, or a child with a disability is shut out of class, or a student faces racial harassment, families can file a complaint with the U.S. Education Department's Office for Civil Rights. That office is supposed to investigate.

Under the Trump administration, it mostly doesn't anymore.

That's what ProPublica found after it sued the department for its internal case records. The administration had stopped publishing the list of schools it was investigating. The lawsuit forced it to hand over the data, and ProPublica made it searchable.

A third as many investigations

• In 2024, the civil rights office launched an average of 310 new investigations a month.
• From Inauguration Day 2025 through July 2026, it launched about 100 a month, or 1,839 in total.
• Over that time, 24,000 new complaints came in through May.
• The office closed nearly 17,000 cases, almost always by dismissing them.
• Fewer than 700 cases opened under the administration ended with a finding that a school did something wrong.

Sexual violence: 29 investigations

The drop is especially steep for sex discrimination. More than 200 complaints came in about how schools handled rape, assault and abuse. The administration opened investigations into 29 of them. It found a school district at fault once. ProPublica notes that at least 60 sexual violence investigations are usually opened every year.

"They're barely doing anything to protect women and girls, including survivors of sexual violence," said Shiwali Patel, a former attorney in the office who is now with the National Women's Law Center.

Meanwhile, the office opened only two investigations into discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Where the effort went instead

The office has shifted its focus. In the period ProPublica examined, it launched 172 investigations into alleged "discrimination against males," and only 104 into alleged "discrimination against females."

One example: a 2023 complaint against Skyline College in California said the school discriminated against men by listing women-only scholarships on its website. The office opened an investigation in April, and two weeks later the college agreed to take the scholarships down.

On race, about 5,000 complaints came in. The office opened fewer than 370 investigations, and about 11% of those were about alleged discrimination against white students.

"They are not allocating their resources to racial discrimination complaints, to sexual assault complaints, to the types of complaints that really often speak to systematic discrimination and problems," said Johnathan Smith of the National Center for Youth Law.

Why it happened

Early in Trump's second term, Education Secretary Linda McMahon fired hundreds of employees and closed seven of the office's regional offices. The workers who are left describe huge caseloads and pressure to dismiss complaints. The president of the union that represents them says the remaining lawyers "are navigating pure chaos."

Most cases that come to this office are about students with disabilities, and that has been true for a long time. Those families are among the ones now waiting on an office that has been cut down and, the records show, is dismissing complaints more often than in prior years.

An Education Department spokesperson blamed the Biden administration for leaving 19,000 unresolved cases, and said the administration "treats any form of discrimination on the basis of race or sex as illegal."

Now the administration wants to shut the Education Department down and move the civil rights office to the Justice Department. House Republicans on the Education and Workforce Committee have voted to break up the department, and Tim Walberg has been leading that effort.

What the data shows

Under Trump, the Education Department's civil rights office has gone from about 310 new investigations a month to about 100, even as 24,000 complaints came in. Out of more than 200 complaints about schools mishandling rape, assault and abuse, it investigated 29 and found a school district at fault once. It opened more cases about discrimination against males than against females, after the administration fired hundreds of the office's staff and closed seven regional offices.

Source

ProPublica: Search the Education Department's Civil Rights Investigations With ProPublica's Database