February 2, 2026
Media contact: Dorie Turner Nolt, dorie.turner@gmail.com, 404-861-1127
American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 252, which represents more than 2,700 U.S. Department of Education employees, released the following statement from AFGE Local 252 President Rachel Gittleman about a new Government Accountability Office report.
“For more than nine months, Education Secretary Linda McMahon sidelined hundreds of employees at the Office for Civil Rights from the critical work of protecting our nation’s most vulnerable students and families, while costing American taxpayers up to $38 million and mounting a massive backlog of complaints from parents and students, a new Government Accountability Office report shows. Instead of following court orders and federal law, the Trump Administration chose to keep these civil rights professionals on paid administrative leave rather than letting them do their jobs, while students, families, and schools paid the price. To stem the ever-growing list of unanswered reports of civil rights violations, the Trump Administration simply dismissed 90% of the complaints received between March and September rather than actually following the law. Secretary McMahon has made clear that she would rather play politics than uphold her responsibility to protect students’ rights. Her actions have undermined the Department’s mission, harmed families, and subjected dedicated federal employees to needless uncertainty, abuse, and harassment. We will continue to fight to hold this Administration accountable and to stand with the hardworking public servants who show up every day to ensure every student in America is treated with dignity, fairness, and respect.”
Background:
- This is not why many of these attorneys entered this field of work. They work in civil rights in education because they believe in the protections under the civil rights laws and the vigorous enforcement of those rights by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.
- OCR employees who were placed on administrative leave in March 2025 are dedicated civil servants who just wanted to do their jobs.
- With the elimination of entire offices and teams of OCR attorneys and investigators processing complaints in certain geographical areas, the cases fell to the remaining regional offices to try to manage in addition to their already high case loads.
- As an example, one OCR investigator was assigned the work of a team of 5+ people from one of the closed offices.
- This resulted in incredibly high caseloads, with some investigators having over 300 active cases compared to an average of 50 cases in years past.
- In years past, OCR leadership has requested increased funding from Congress to hire more OCR staff when average caseloads were much lower.
- Meanwhile, thousands of students and families sat waiting for answers on their complaints, many of which are students with disabilities.
- Many OCR staffers have spent their entire careers developing skills, knowledge, and expertise that allowed them to navigate the complex legal landscapes of federal civil rights laws including Title VI (race/color/national origin), Title IX (sex), Section 504 (disability), the Age Discrimination Act, and Title II of the ADA (public entities, regardless of funding). With the way the Department structured these unlawful firings and administrative leave, it did not matter if the employee was a high performer, a subject-matter expert in a certain area, skilled at mediation, or very efficient at case processing — if they reported to a duty station at a certain location, they were placed on leave and told they would be fired.
- These misguided agency actions, coupled with other employees retiring in the face of the blatant harassment by the Trump Administration, has resulted in incredible loss of institutional knowledge within OCR. This is the furthest you can get from government efficiency.
- The emphasis within OCR is on case closures and dismissals, with 90% of complaints dismissed from March to September 2025. Given the incredible caseloads, complaints are not being evaluated with the same level of care or diligence.
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AFGE Local 252 