Senator Sanders Exposes Education Department’s Civil Rights Office Failures in 2025 Report

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) released a report last Tuesday exposing the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) for its failure to protect students from discrimination and harassment in 2025.

The report found zero resolution agreements in 2025 involving sexual harassment, sexual violence, seclusion or restraint, racial harassment, or discriminatory school discipline. Overall, only 1% of complaints submitted to the OCR resulted in a resolution agreement.

Decimated Workforce and Record-Low Resolutions

Sanders noted that the OCR has been “decimated,” with nearly half of its employees receiving reduction-in-force notices in March 2025. The report also highlighted that 2025 marked the fewest resolution agreements in the OCR’s 12-year history.

“When a child with a disability is denied the education they are entitled to, when a student faces racial or sexual harassment — they turn to the Office for Civil Rights for help,” Sanders said in a press release. “Yet the Trump administration has decimated this office. As a result, tens of thousands of students facing discrimination have been left with no recourse. That is beyond unacceptable.”

Leadership Under Secretary Linda McMahon

The Department of Education, which President Donald Trump has repeatedly attempted to dismantle, is led by Secretary Linda McMahon. Despite her claim that “discrimination is a bad thing,” the OCR’s operations have failed to reflect this stance.

While individuals and families can still sue schools for discrimination in court, the process is costly and inaccessible compared to OCR investigations. The OCR is designed to investigate complaints of discrimination in schools, but its effectiveness has plummeted.

Government Accountability Office Findings

A January 2026 report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) revealed that 90% of cases received between March and September 2025 were dismissed outright. The GAO recommended increasing staffing in the OCR to address the backlog.

Disability Discrimination Cases Hit Hardest

The lack of resolutions in disability-related cases is particularly alarming. A February 2025 ProPublica report noted that OCR staff were instructed to prioritize disability-focused cases while ignoring those involving gender and race. This selective approach has led to critical oversights, such as failing to address disproportionate seclusion of Black disabled male students compared to their white counterparts.

Despite the emphasis on disability cases, resolution rates remain critically low:

• Seclusion and restraint: 0 resolution agreements, 172 pending cases
• Disability harassment: 1 resolution agreement, 595 pending cases
• Access to appropriate education: 40 resolution agreements, 1,887 pending cases

“This report shows federal civil rights enforcement in education, an essential tool provided by Congress to help fight disability discrimination, is being denied to students with disabilities,” said Katy Neas, CEO of The Arc, in a press release. “OCR is where families turn when a student is denied accommodations or accessibility, pushed out of learning time, or harassed or disciplined unfairly because of disability.”