A federal judge is standing by his June 2025 decision requiring the U.S. Department of Education (USDE) to restore its Office for Civil Rights (OCR) “to the status-quo” so that it can “carry out its statutory functions.” The order, which prevents the USDE from laying off OCR employees, comes despite a U.S. Supreme Court emergency order in a separate case allowing the agency to move forward with mass layoffs across the USDE.
According to the judge, the case challenging the gutting of OCR, which included the shuttering of seven out of 12 regional OCR offices, was brought by two students who “faced severe discrimination and harassment in school and were depending on the OCR to resolve their complaints so that they could attend public school.” The judge said that case (Victim Rights Law Center v. U.S. Department of Education) is separate from New York v. McMahon (the Supreme Court case that allowed the department to proceed with mass layoffs) because the students have “unique harms that they have suffered due to the closure of the OCR.”
As a result of the judge’s latest decision, on August 14, 2025 the USDE appealed the ruling to the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals.
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