The U.S. Division of Schooling spent as much as $38 million final 12 months paying staffers from its workplace for civil rights to stay on administrative depart whereas the Trump administration’s efforts to put them off had been stymied by courts, in line with a report from Congress’ investigative arm.
The Authorities Accountability Workplace reached its value estimate—a variety of $28 million to $38 million—by ballparking the salaries and advantages for the staffers, who had been faraway from their jobs final March as a part of the Trump administration’s push to dismantle the Schooling Division.
Within the civil rights workplace, that discount in drive—or RIF—affected 299 staffers, about half of OCR’s employees of 575 on the time, GAO mentioned.
The workplace is charged with guaranteeing faculty districts and schools adjust to federal civil rights legal guidelines. Laid-off workers had been initially positioned on paid administrative depart earlier than they had been to be terminated in June.
OCR workers had been prohibited from working whereas they had been on depart, GAO famous. However as authorized challenges to division layoffs proceeded, court docket orders ended up prolonging their administrative depart earlier than the Schooling Division in the end returned OCR staffers to their jobs in current months.
To place that $28 million-$38 million vary in context, the higher finish is rather less than the quantity the state of Vermont obtained for Title I grants to high school districts final fiscal 12 months.
And it’s greater than the roughly $20 million funds final 12 months for the division’s civics training aggressive grant program. The Trump administration had sought to zero out the grants in its 2026 funds proposal, however lawmakers in the end preserved the funding.
The GAO was unable to provide a precise determine for the quantity spent on paying laid-off staffers as a result of the Schooling Division hasn’t complied with transparency necessities issued to all companies by the Trump administration’s Workplace of Administration and Funds, which oversees federal spending, and the Workplace of Personnel Administration, which is accountable for the federal workforce.
With out that info, it’s tough to say whether or not the employees reductions at OCR achieved the Trump administration’s acknowledged aim of making a extra environment friendly, leaner workforce at OCR, GAO concluded.
“Schooling can not be certain that OCR improved service to the American folks, elevated productiveness, or decreased its general funds,” for the federal fiscal years coated by the report by axing workers, the GAO mentioned in its report.
Kimberly Richey, the assistant secretary who leads OCR, argued in response to GAO that the Schooling Division couldn’t present extra detailed info as a result of some workers topic to the discount in drive returned to their jobs in December.
Ongoing litigation additionally prevented the division from taking part in GAO’s investigation, Richey wrote.
The OCR layoffs have languished in authorized limbo for months, since two court docket orders final spring required the Trump administration to return laid-off Schooling Division employees to their jobs. Although the U.S. Supreme Courtroom issued a preliminary ruling final July that allowed the layoffs in different Schooling Division places of work to proceed, OCR staffers had been protected by the second court docket order that addressed solely them.
The Schooling Division began bringing again OCR employees in September underneath that order, till a federal appeals court docket on Sept. 29, 2025, permitted the OCR employees reductions to go ahead.
Days into the federal authorities shutdown in October, the Schooling Division issued RIF notices to extra OCR staffers who had been spared from the March discount in drive. When a choose in the end halted these layoffs ordered throughout the shutdown, the Schooling Division additionally deserted the OCR layoffs stemming from the March reductions.
It began reinstating these OCR staffers late final 12 months, and has since rescinded all their layoffs, in line with GAO.
Together with the employees reductions, the division additionally shuttered seven of OCR’s 12 regional places of work, in Atlanta, Boston, Cleveland, Chicago, Dallas, Philadelphia, and San Francisco. OCR reassigned their caseloads to the 5 remaining places of work.
OCR’s work slowed down in wake of employees reductions, observers say
OCR obtained greater than 9,000 complaints of alleged discrimination between March 11 and September 23 of final 12 months, GAO reported. It resolved greater than 7,000 of these complaints—although it resolved about 90% of these complaints by dismissing them.
The dismissal fee is “loads greater than what could be typical,” mentioned Jackie Gharapour Wernz, a civil rights lawyer who works ith colleges and served as a profession worker in OCR from 2016 to 2018 underneath each Democratic and Republican administrations. “I might be fascinated to see the idea for the dismissals.”
OCR employees can select to dismiss a criticism on a technicality or as a result of it lacks “enough info,” a time period that may depart authorized wiggle room.
In its second time period, the Trump administration has additionally taken the weird step of utilizing OCR to drop a authorized hammer on faculty districts, universities, and states going towards Trump coverage priorities by embracing variety, fairness, and inclusion initiatives and letting transgender women compete on women’ athletic groups.
As an example, final 12 months, OCR advised New York’s state training division that its coverage prohibiting colleges from adopting Native American mascots violates civil rights legislation.
Nonetheless, Wernz has observed that the OCR has “considerably slowed down” after the RIFs, even in instances that middle on the Trump administration’s favourite points.
Working example: Wernz anticipated a rash of investigations into colleges and schools after the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk in September prompted a wave of trainer suspensions and dismissals over their social media feedback concerning the killing. However they didn’t materialize, she mentioned.
“They’ve simply neutered the establishment,” mentioned Wernz.
The general public shouldn’t shift the blame for the wasted funds onto OCR staffers, Wernz mentioned.
Staff she’s in contact with “didn’t take pleasure in sitting there and having their skills be wasted,” she mentioned.
However additionally they decided, “‘if we don’t cling on, they’re going to decimate the group much more.’”
