Moving ED's Office of Civil Rights reduces investigations of discrimination
Are there fewer options for individuals with disabilities to pursue remedies?
Over on Sped Law Blog for 17 July 2026, one of us (who would be Professor Yell) posted a note regarding the movement of the US Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights from ED to the Department of Justice. He explained that the change for the Office for Civil Rights may affect the protection of the rights of children and youths with disabilities.
Federal agencies enforce Section 504 by ensuring that recipients of federal financial assistance (such as public schools, universities, hospitals, and social service agencies) do not discriminate against individuals with disabilities. Enforcement mechanisms include agency-initiated investigations, compliance reviews, and processing private citizen complaints. Unfortunately, OCR has been effectively dismantled by the current administration. This has been accomplished through a couple of methods. The first method was reducing the number of regional offices of OCR from 12 to 5. According to Education Week, caseloads for the remaining five regional offices surged, causing significant disruption to civil rights investigations and complaint resolutions. Although a federal judge ordered OCR to reinstate laid-off employees, the U.S. Department of Education plans to appeal the ruling. Second, the Trump administration has placed 1/2 of the investigators for OCR on administrative leave. Again, with 1/2 of the investigators no longer at the agency, investigations of school districts for discrimination against students with disabilities have come to a standstill.
Mitch offered some hope in a subsequent paragraph of his post. Read the post in its original at “Wither Section 504 Enforcement?”1
Footnote
Pretty clever word play Mitch threw into that title, no? Is 504 enforcement withering?