A federal judge said Wednesday the U.S. Department of Education has not meaningfully complied with his June order to reinstate hundreds of civil rights enforcement staff after layoffs greatly reduced their ranks.
The statement by Judge Myong J. Joun, a Masschusetts-based U.S. district judge, was part of an order he issued denying the Trump administration’s request to drop his initial directive to the agency, which stemmed from an April lawsuit challenging only terminations in the office for civil rights—the Education Department division charged with enforcing federal civil rights laws in the nation’s schools.
The administration sought to have Joun overturn his June order after the U.S. Supreme Court blocked another, broader order from Joun in a separate case that directed the Education Department to restore all laid-off staff from across the agency. Administration lawyers argued that aspects of the separate cases were “functionally identical.”
But Joun, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, wrote that he was “unconvinced” by the administration’s arguments.
“The two cases are not identical merely because defendants raised the same defenses in both cases or because plaintiffs brought similar causes of action,” he wrote.
In addition, he wrote, the Education Department likely wouldn’t suffer harm if he didn’t block the order “especially given that they have not substantially complied with the preliminary injunction order.”
Ed. Dept. hasn’t restored laid-off staffers to work
The Education Department has extended the paid administrative leave for terminated OCR staffers while Joun’s order has been in effect, but has yet to return any of them to work, according to court filings. The agency has paid the dismissed OCR employees nearly $1 million a week while they’ve been on paid leave, according to the filings.
The office for civil rights, one of the larger divisions of the Education Department that had 12 regional offices and roughly 560 employees when President Donald Trump took office, faced some of the largest cuts when the Trump administration announced in March it was shedding nearly half the agency’s staff. It shuttered more than half of OCR’s regional offices and cut more than 243 union positions.
The office is charged with enforcing federal anti-discrimination laws at the nation’s schools and colleges by investigating complaints and working with schools to bring them into compliance. It receives thousands of complaints each year.
Amid the cuts, under Trump, the office has publicly led the charge to pursue the administration’s social policy agenda, opening cases cracking down on transgender student policies and diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. Former staff have worried that the office wouldn’t be able to balance its typical caseload with Trump’s identified priorities.
In June, Joun agreed with the parents of two students who had experienced discrimination at school, which OCR was investigating, and an organization that represents sexual assault victims, the Victim Rights Law Center, in their lawsuit challenging the cutbacks. He found that OCR wasn’t fulfilling its mandated responsibility to investigate all complaints, and he ordered the department to restore OCR to its size when Trump took office while the case proceeded.
After the Supreme Court’s decision allowing the layoffs to continue in the separate case, the department said told all laid-off staff—who remained on the payroll but on administrative leave at that point—the department would continue with the layoffs, and that OCR staff covered by the Victim Rights Law Center case would be “separately notified of their separation at the appropriate time.”
The administration last month argued to Joun that he should vacate his order specifically regarding OCR, saying that the cases concerning Education Department layoffs were “indistinguishable in all pertinent respects.”
“I am unconvinced by either argument,” Joun wrote.
The Education Department didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Employees say department is prolonging reinstatement
In the Education Department’s most recent filing in the case, submitted to the court on Aug. 5, Chief of Staff Rachel Oglesby said the department was fulfilling its obligations, writing that between March 11 and Aug. 4, the department had received 6,495 civil rights complaints and opened 377 for investigation. It dismissed 4,530. It resolved more than 100 for “insufficient evidence” and another 385 through settlements or agreements. Meanwhile, the department opened 27 of its own directed investigations.
Oglesby said the department was in the process of issuing the terminated employees “restored and updated” government equipment, and made sure there was tech support for remote employees. In other updates, the department cited a lack of physical office space, the slow pace of responses to employment surveys, and the need to print ID cards as reasons that staff hadn’t yet returned to the job as the court ordered.
But OCR employees who have been placed on leave said the department was simply prolonging the reinstatement process.
One employee, based in Texas, wrote in a court filing that OCR staff were fully able to work remotely, and there was no reason they could not do so now.
“My belief, based on my firsthand knowledge and years of experience at OCR, is that the department is not making a good faith effort to reintegrate OCR employees subject to the [reduction in force],” the employee wrote.
Another, based in Washington, said the department’s use of surveys to collect information from terminated employees rather than direct outreach also further delayed reinstatement.
“OCR employees subject to the RIF have been left languishing, eager to return to the roles that some have occupied for decades,” the employee wrote. “The consequences of these delays are dire—not just for the staff of OCR but for children and youth across the country.”
