March 14 (UPI) — The nonprofit Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates filed a class-action lawsuit Friday against the United States Department of Education for allegedly obstructing its own Office for Civil Rights.
The case was filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia by COPAA and led by two parents who are also members of the nonprofit, purporting that the Education Department has “systemically obstructed OCR’s investigation and enforcement functions by imposing a general freeze on investigations while directing resources to cases of political interests.”
According to the case docket, the plaintiffs accused the Trump administration and Education Secretary Linda McMahon of purposefully making it impossible for the OCR to conduct civil rights enforcement, due to “mass firings” and the “the termination of dozens of education-related contracts,” which “harm students and their families, who rely on the department to ensure their access to educational opportunities, as required by the federal civil rights laws Congress charges OCR to enforce.”
The suit also alleges that “the department abruptly froze all OCR investigations, abdicating its responsibility to process and investigate civil rights complaints filed by families nationwide seeking equal access to education,” before only releasing that stoppage “on complaints alleging only disability-based discrimination while continuing to bar OCR staff” from working on cases related to race or sex-based discrimination, then “on its own initiative, began targeted investigations into purported discrimination against white and cisgender students,” while seeking information to investigate “programs designed to benefit transgender students and students of color.”
The two people named as leading the suit are Nikki S. Carter, a Black parent of three children and “A.W.,” a parent whose child “experienced sexual assault and harassment by a classmate.”
Carter filed a complaint with OCR in 2022 alleging “discrimination on the basis of race and retaliation for her work as a parent advocate,” and purports that “as a result of [the] defendants’ obstruction of OCR’s complaint investigation and processing functions” OCR stopped investigating and processing her complaint.
A.W. filed a complaint with OCR in 2023 and alleges the same complaint as Carter regarding OCR cessation of investigation due to obstruction. COPAA also lodged the same complaint as the named parents.
A group of 21 attorneys general, led by New York’s Letitia James filed suit Thursday against the Trump administration to try and stop the undoing of the Education Department.
“This administration may claim to be stopping waste and fraud,” said James in a press release, “but it is clear that their only mission is to take away the necessary services, resources, and funding that students and their families need.”
