The U.S. Department of Education is located in the Lyndon Baines Johnson Building, pictured in March in Washington, DC.
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U.S. Department of Education employees laid off in March received a surprise email Friday asking them to return to work.
These federal workers, including many attorneys, investigate family complaints of discrimination in the nation's schools as part of the department's Office of Civil Rights (OCR). They were eliminated by the Trump administration in March. force reductionBut the courts intervenedtemporarily blocking the completion of the department's layoffs.
That left OCR's 299 employees, roughly half of its workforce, in legal and professional limbo because the department decided to place them on paid administrative leave while the legal battle proceeded rather than allow them to work. Court records show 52 people have since decided to leave.
On Friday, an unknown number of the remaining 247 employees received an email from the department. That email, shared with NPR by two people who received it, says that while the Trump administration will continue its legal fight to cut the department's workforce, “the use of all OCR employees, including those currently on administrative leave, will bolster and refocus enforcement efforts in a way that serves and benefits parents, students and families.”
Employees have been instructed to report to their regional office on Monday, December 15th.
In a statement to NPR, Julie Hartman, the department's legal affairs spokeswoman, confirmed that the department will “temporarily bring back OCR employees.”
“The Department will continue to appeal ongoing and ongoing litigation related to the workforce reductions,” Hartman wrote, “but in the meantime, it will engage all employees currently being compensated by American taxpayers.”
The department did not say how many employees it is recalling or why it is recalling them now after they have been on paid administrative leave for most of the year.
“By blocking OCR employees from doing their jobs, department leadership has allowed a huge backlog of civil rights complaints to rise and now expects those same employees to completely resolve the crisis on the department’s own initiative,” said Rachel Gittleman, president of AFGE Local 252, the union that represents many Department of Education employees. “Students, families and schools have paid the price for this chaos.”
The department did not respond to a request for the current size of OCR's complaint backlog, but one department source, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation from the Trump administration, told NPR that OCR currently has about 25,000 pending complaints, including about 7,000 open investigations.
Gittleman said the administration's decision to keep those OCR attorneys on paid leave “has already wasted over $40 million in taxpayer funds instead of allowing them to do their jobs.”
NPR could not independently verify this cost.
In October the administration tried to shoot another 137 OCR employees, although they were reinstated as part of an agreement to end the government shutdown.
Overall, only 62 OCR employees have not received layoff notices at some point this year—about 10% of the office's workforce through January. number of personnel.
Two days before the department notified employees of their recall, NPR reported about the impact of these OCR cuts on students with disabilities and their families.
Maggie Heilman told NPR that she filed a complaint with OCR in 2024, alleging that her daughter, who has Down syndrome, was denied her claim. right to a free and appropriate public education at school. OCR began an investigation in October 2024, but it was repeatedly interrupted due to the aforementioned staff cuts. Heilman's case remains one of about 7,000 open investigations.
As for the administration's decision to try to fire many student civil rights attorneys, Heilman said “it tells families with children how [my daughter] that their pain doesn’t matter.”
Since Trump took office, public data shows that OCR reached settlements in 73 cases involving alleged disability discrimination. Compare this to 2024, when OCR solved 390or 2017, the year Trump took office during his first term, when OCR reached agreements in more than 1000 such cases.
