In a move widely criticized by teachers’ unions, disability rights organizations, feminists and others, the Dept. of Education announced June 16 the plan to relocate several important education programs to other federal agencies without Congressional approval. This change is widely seen as the next step in carrying out the plan to dismantle the DOE that was originally outlined in the Project 2025 document during Donald Trump’s run for office in 2024.
In the changes announced, the Department of Health and Human Services will be responsible for the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, while the Department of Justice will take over the Office of Civil Rights of DOE, taking charge of civil rights enforcement and student privacy protection.
Why does it matter where these services are located? The umbrella issue is the plan to dismantle the DOE, which was founded in 1979 as a way to centralize the administration of progressive gains in education, provide federal support to education to students with disabilities and put the power of the federal government towards enforcing civil rights in schools.
Does anybody really think that HHS under the leadership of Robert Kennedy Jr. has the will, let alone the expertise, to support evidence-based education for children with disabilities? Does the current DOJ have any interest in protecting students’ IEP rights or defending Title IX or the racial segregation of schools? It’s like asking the foxes to guard the henhouse.
The far-right billionaires agenda wants to roll back all the labor and civil rights victories which stand in the way of their ability to grow ever richer. Any student of this history in education knows that laws like IDEA (individuals with disabilities education act), the foundational law that protects the right of children with disabilities to attend public schools and receive an appropriate education in the least restrictive environment, and Title IX. As well as ending Jim Crow segregation in schools, these laws came about from vast social movements inspired by the movement for Black liberation.
Moving the programs would end the centralization of education-related services and enforcement, placing obstacles to people seeking federal support and undermining the work of these offices, by placing the work in the hands of people lacking school-based expertise. Frankly, with the changes in DOJ and HHS during the Trump administration, it is clear that the current priorities in these departments are antithetical to the missions of DOE’s OSERS and OCR.
Move to HHS reflective of “medical model” of disability
The Arc of the United States, a disability advocacy group, warns that giving HHS control over programs under the Individuals with Disabilities Act “pushes students with disabilities toward a medical model, where disability is treated as a diagnosis to manage instead of a natural part of human life.”
“When such mindsets fuel education decisions, students with disabilities are more likely to be separated from the general school community, according to Robyn Linscott, The Arc’s director of Education and Family Policy. She stated in an interview with The 19th: ‘IDEA belongs in an education agency because it is about classrooms, IEP meetings, behavior support, accessibility, and whether students can learn alongside their peers.’”
Meanwhile the plan moves civil rights accountability in education to the Dept. of Justice. The Office for Civil Rights of the DOE investigates allegations of discrimination at schools and universities and violation of civil rights laws. This includes Title IX which has done so much to advance women in athletics, as well as IDEA. And this is not even discussing the recent DOJ memo on the Olmstead decision, which attempts to overrule decades of precedent supporting the right of people with disabilities to live and receive care in their communities.
Already, under the leadership of Linda McMahon, the Trump-appointed DOE Secretary, OCR has shifted its focus on civil rights compliance to weaponizing Title IX to discriminate against transgender students and repress first amendment rights for supporters of Palestinian liberation.
This is not a done deal. Some members of Congress are making noise about pushing back on this. But we cannot rely on them to fight for us. Victories like the passage of IDEA, Title IX and the end of Jim Crow segregation of schools were not gifts from politicians; they are the product of militant mass movements. This current moment shows reforms and victories are vulnerable to being rolled back in a system of capitalist “democracy.” We need a new system, a socialist system, that puts economic and political power in the hands of the working to run society to serve peoples’ needs.
