Bernie Sanders says that the Trump administration has “decimated” the Ed Department’s Office of Civil RightsBill Clark/CQ Roll Call/Zuma
Last Tuesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT.) released a report showing just how intensely the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights has failed students. The report found that there were zero resolution agreements in 2025 “involving sexual harassment, sexual violence, seclusion or restraint, racial harassment, or discriminatory school discipline.”
Overall, just one percent of complaints submitted to the Ed Department’s OCR received a resolution agreement. Sanders noted that OCR has been “decimated”—nearly half of OCR employees received a reduction-in-force notice in March 2025. The report highlighted the fact that 2025 saw the fewest resolution agreements in 12 years.
“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 in a press release. “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.”
Department of Education—which President Donald Trump keeps trying to dismantle–is led by Secretary Linda McMahon, who claimed she believes that “discrimination is a bad thing.” But, no one would know that based on how the office is run.
Individuals and their families can still sue schools for discrimination in court, but this can be an expensive processs, unlike how OCR investigations are supposed to work. Essentially, if anyone feels that they are discriminated against in schools, they can file a complaint and OCR is supposed to seriously consider an investigation.
A Government Accountability Office report from January 2026 also found that 90 percent of cases received between March and September 2025 were dismissed outright. The report recommends encouraging staffing in the Education Department’s OCR.
While it is harmful that there have been few resolution agreements across types of discriminatory categories, the lack of resolutions when it comes to disability issues is telling. This is because, as ProPublica noted in February 2025, OCR staff were specifically instructed to continue with disability focused cases and to ignore ones pertaining to gender and race. However, ignoring race in disability discrimination cases will lead to OCR dropping the ball, for instance, in situations where a Black disabled male student may be disproportionately secluded in comparison to a white disabled male student.
Still, rates for disability-focused cases remain low. In 2025, zero resolution agreements were reached for cases involving seclusion and restraint, with 172 pending cases on this topic. For disability harassment, there was one resolution agreement and 595 pending cases. For cases involving access to appropriate education, there 1,887 pending cases and just 40 agreements.
“This report shows federal civil rights enforcement in education, an essential tool provided by Congress to help fight disability discrimination, is being denied to students with disabilities,” said Katy Neas, CEO of The Arc, in a press release. “OCR is where families turn when a student is denied accommodations or accessibility, pushed out of learning time, or harassed or disciplined unfairly because of disability.
