A doctor who has filed hundreds of civil rights complaints claims that the company has a sizable backlog.
A preliminary injunction request filed this month by the Trump administration’s Office for Civil Rights cannot no longer meet its legal obligations as a result of severe funding slashes, staffing reductions, and business closures.
The Trump presidency has” the rug out from under” individuals who rely on the company, according to an attorney representing students and parents in the lawsuit, according to an attorney representing the plaintiffs.
Defendants have been injured and continue to be injured because accused ‘ actions and inactions make them subject to discrimination based on their race, gender, sexual orientation, and gender identity, and prevent them from having equal access to OCR’s legal rights issue process, the complaint says.  ,
According to a May 5 news release from the National Center for Youth Law, the motion urges the court to “immediately halt the Department’s recent policy decision to abandon thousands of investigations” within OCR.
The Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the National Center for Youth Law represent the group of students and parents in the lawsuit.
The Trump administration is making the OCR process “impossible” because there aren’t enough people and resources to accomplish anything, according to Johnathan Smith, general counsel at NCYL, who spoke to The Fix.
The lawsuit also alleges an Equal Protection Clause violation, alleging that the Office for Civil Rights ‘ new” End DEI” portal gives some complaints precedence over others, giving rise to an unfair focus.
According to Smith, the administration encourages people to “file those types of investigations at the same time as they are shutting down the process for everyone else.”
He also told The Fix that Arne Duncan, a former secretary of education under the Obama administration, was questioned about the lawsuit on CNN a few weeks ago, and Duncan referred to the civil rights office as a” system of last resort.” In essence, he said that people only visit the office when there is another option or venue nearby.
With OCR’s dismantling, Smith claimed that” they are literally pulling the rug out from under the families and children who need and rely on this system.”
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The Fix reached out to current Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, and Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor twice via email for comment in the last month, but did not receive responses.
In another perspective on the ongoing lawsuit, University of Michigan professor emeritus of economics Mark Perry claimed that OCR had already been ineffective under the Biden administration.
Perry has handled matters involving the federal government for the past six years, filing nearly 1, 000 civil rights complaints for nearly 900 higher education institutions ‘ alleged Title VI and Title IX violations.
According to Biden, the office struggled to effectively handle these complaints, as demonstrated by his backlog of over 300 unresolved cases, he said.  ,
Due to the staffing levels at 12 regional offices, OCR “was frequently unresponsive, unprofessional, and incompetent” even before Trump’s recent changes, Perry told The Fix.
He believes that his background supports the lawsuit’s claim that the office is insufficiently trained to enforce federal civil rights, especially now that the number of complaints filed has “increased significantly”
As the Trump administration works to dissolve the Department of Education, according to Perry, there has been some discussion about moving OCR’s responsibilities to the Department of Justice.
A new home for OCR, with an increased budget and staff, might be able to [it ] to properly, professionally, and effectively handle and resolve federal civil rights complaints, Perry told The Fix.
In the end, Perry said, its short-term future” seems problematic.”
Smith agreed with Perry, stating for The Fix that the system was not “perfect” even before the reductions because” there were large backlogs where children and families had to wait far too long to receive information about the system.”
However, the National Center for Youth Law believes that removing OCR will only make the situation worse.
Smith argued that the force reductions must be reversed. Instead of being fired, employees should be hired instead of opened instead of closed, and work should be done to create an office that can “provide the assistance that people deserve,” he said.
Smith expressed his hope that “everyone in this situation is treated equally and fairly.”
MORE: Ed Dept. drops a$ 37 million fine against Christian University despite” no findings” of fault.
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