It was a Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights investigation into the Ottumwa Community School District in Iowa that revealed for years a Black middle-school student in the district faced ongoing racial harassment from white students and that the school district didn’t do enough to address the harassment.
The investigation found white students taunted the student using racial slurs and even mimicked the death of George Floyd, who was killed by a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, in Minneapolis.
The investigation came as a result of a discrimination complaint — which students and families can submit online to the Office of Civil Rights if they feel a school or school district is violating their civil rights.
The offices enforce laws that bar schools from discriminating against students and investigate discrimination complaints filed by students and families.
But President Donald Trump’s mass layoffs at the U.S. Department of Education and shuttering of civil rights offices nationwide has put thousands of open civil rights investigations in jeopardy — hundreds of which originated in Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa.
Advocates said pending and future complaints are unlikely to be resolved due to the recent mass layoffs and Trump’s future plans to further reduce the Department of Education.
“These cuts are going to negatively impact those families that have and students that have a complaint and a need for the Department of Education’s investigation and involvement,” said Sarah Hinger, deputy director of the ACLU’s Racial Justice Program. “They’re going to cut off a source and a channel for people to seek relief and remedies going forward.”
According to Department of Education data, in Missouri, Kansas, Iowa and Nebraska 489 investigations into discrimination complaints remain pending and more than 12,000 investigations remain open nationwide.
Missouri, the largest state population-wise, accounts for 210 complaints, while 146 complaints remain pending in Kansas. Seventy-three complaints remain pending in Iowa and 60 remain open in Nebraska.
The Department of Education shuttered seven of the 12 regional civil rights offices throughout the country earlier this month and laid off roughly 1,300 of the Department of Education’s 4,000 employees.
According to a ProPublica report, the civil rights division’s 550 employees were the most heavily affected by the layoffs.
Hinger said the depth of the layoffs at the Department of Education make it unlikely current and future investigations will continue.
“It’s really important that individuals have that opportunity to go to the Department of Education to hear their concerns met — where they may not feel that they are able to do that or have a remedy available to them in their local community,” Hinger said.
The vast majority of the 489 pending investigations in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska stem from complaints related to racial harassment and proper services for students with a disability.
The Department of Education houses a database online of the complaints as a “public service.” The department states it updates the list weekly, but according to the website, the last update of the complaint log was Jan. 14, 2025.
The Kansas City office that covers Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska remains open but it’s unclear how many states the office will represent in the wake of the seven closures and layoffs. The Chicago branch that represented Iowa was among the branches shuttered earlier this month.
The Department of Education’s Kansas City office did not respond to a request for comment.
Complaints offer path to change
Sarah Jane Hunt, a managing partner at St. Louis-based civil rights law firm Kennedy Hunt, P.C., said she expects Office of Civil Rights investigations to come to a halt following the office closures and layoffs.
“What this is going to do is essentially take an agency that has already not had the type of resources I believe it needs to function correctly and make it even more impossible,” Hunt said. “Even before all of these cuts, the investigations were taking a very long time.”
Hunt represents similar cases, typically with damages, and her services aren’t free. She said civil rights complaints through the Office of Civil Rights gave people who can’t afford legal representation a cost-free way to bring schools and school districts to the table to resolve issues.
She said a large portion of parents and students who file complaints aren’t seeking damages, but rather want meaningful change implemented at schools.
Hopey Fink works with families and students facing discrimination as a staff attorney on Legal Services of Eastern Missouri’s education justice team — a nonprofit program that represents low-income students and families facing unequal, race-based school practices. She said Office of Civil Rights complaints often are a conduit for necessary change at school districts.
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“An OCR complaint can lead to an investigation and can result in practice changes in a district,” Fink said. “There can be really comprehensive resolutions that are reached, and in our experience, that complaint itself can also create leverage for a family to get a district to a negotiating table.”
At the Ottumwa Community School District, the 2022 investigation led to district officials agreeing to reimburse the student’s family for expenses for therapy services and provide staff training on responding to complaints of harassment based on race, color or national origin.
“Hearing that there are not going to be full staff in all the offices for investigating this kind of discrimination complaint — we believe that would mean that race and disability discrimination may be more likely to happen more frequently and get resolved less frequently,” Fink said.
Lawsuits seeks to reverse firings
Two parents filed a lawsuit alongside national disability rights group Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates seeking to stop the mass firings at the Department of Education.
The class-action lawsuit alleges the firing of the staff at the seven offices of civil rights violated the equal protections clause of the Fifth Amendment by overriding congressional authority.
The parents filed suit in the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia seeks for the firings at the Department of Education to be declared unlawful and to make the department process all Office of Civil Rights complaints “promptly and equitably.”
“COPAA does not support the Administration’s shortsighted vision to dismantle ED,” said Denise Marshall, Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, in a statement. “Doing so will significantly harm students with disabilities and limit their access to education, career training, and employment opportunities.”
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METHODS
To tell this story, reporter Kavahn Mansouri reviewed publicly available data on pending Department of Education Office of Civil Rights investigations and interviewed lawyers and advocates who filed discrimination complaints and worked with families dealing with civil rights violations. He also reached out to the U.S. Department of Education but did not receive a response from a request for comment.
REFERENCES
“Iowa school district failed to protect Black student from racial harassment, feds say.”
(Des Moines Register | Dec. 9, 2022)
“Massive Layoffs at the Department of Education Erode Its Civil Rights Division.”
(ProPublica | March 12, 2025)
“Parents Sue Trump Administration for Allegedly Sabotaging Education Department’s Civil Rights Division.”
(ProPublica | March 14, 2025)
“Pending Cases Currently Under Investigation at Elementary-Secondary and Post-Secondary Schools.”
(Ed.gov | Jan. 14, 2025)
TYPE OF ARTICLE
News: Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
